The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance

241 Pages·2001·0.81 MB·English

by  Arthur Versluis

The Esoteric Origins of the
American Renaissance
Arthur Versluis
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance
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the esoteric origins of the
American Renaissance
Arthur Versluis
1

3
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta
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and associated companies in
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Copyright © by Arthur Versluis
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced,
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Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Versluis, Arthur, –
The esoteric origins ofthe American Renaissance /Arthur Versluis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN ---
. American literature—th century—History and criticism. . Occultism—
United States—History—th century. . United States—Intellectual life—
th century. . American literature—European influences. . Transcendentalism
(New England) . Occultism in literature. I. Title.
PS.OV
.(cid:1)—dc -
        
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
on acid-free paper
Contents
 Introduction 
 European Esoteric Currents 
 Esotericism in Early America 
 The Esoteric Ambience of the American Renaissance 
 Hitchcock 
 Poe 
 Hawthorne 
 Melville 
 Greaves 
 Alcott 
 Emerson 
 Fuller 
 Whitman 
 Dickinson 
 The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance 
Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 
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The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance
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Introduction
In American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions, I detailed the immense im-
pact that the Euro-American discovery of Asian religions had not only on
European Romanticism, but above all, on American Transcendentalism. There
I argued that the Transcendentalists’ discovery of the Bhagavad Gita, the
Vedas, the Upanishads, and other world scriptures was critical in the entire
movement, pivotal not only for the well-known figures like Emerson and
Thoreau, but also for lesser known later figures like Samuel Johnson and
William Rounseville Alger. That Transcendentalism emerged out of this new
knowledge of the world’s religious traditions I have no doubt. But there were
also pre-existing traditions in western Europe that contributed a great deal to
the emergence, not only of Transcendentalism, but also of what has come to be
known as the American Renaissance, that extraordinary period during the mid-
nineteenth century when so much of American literature came into being.
Primary among these European traditions was Western esotericism.
Until relatively recently, there was not much reliable scholarship on
Western esotericism, and indeed, it remains the most important new field of re-
ligious and interdisciplinary scholarship. The central figure of contemporary
scholarship on Western esoteric traditions is Antoine Faivre, who holds a chair
in the Sorbonne on precisely this subject. Faivre’s numerous books and articles
unquestionably make him the leading scholar in the field, but his scholarship
goes beyond articles and books that focus on primary figures and movements in
esotericism. Faivre also has sketched the primary characteristics of Western es-
otericism more generally, and these will form a useful starting point from which
to launch into an extensive investigation of how Western esoteric currents pro-
vided the ambience for and informed the American Renaissance. It should be
remarked that this is the first such investigation of its kind: there is no other
book on this subject.