Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan. / "It is the aim ... of this dissertation to treat of Emerson's critical opinion of Goethe."--Pref. Bibliography: 195-197.

The works of the nineteenth-century American thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson continue to be inspiring particularly due to their empowering effect on the individual. It is especially Emerson's concepts of the sovereignty of the individual, the importance of self-definition, the view of life as a transitory flow, and the relationship between freedom and fate which can be practically and usefully applied in the life of an individual. It is possible, then, to understand and evaluate Emerson's works through the practical effects of his concepts, in other words through the prism of pragmatism. Emerson's empowering philosophy can be of use especially to disempowered groups such as African Americans. The Emersonian themes which are to be found in the works of various African-American non-fiction writers such as W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cornel West testify to the relevance of Emerson for this minority group. In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Richard Wright's Native Son, two African-American novels, Emersonian principles are shown to be of utmost importance for the positive development of the protagonists.

John Milton, par son œuvre polémique en prose, a exercé une influence importante d’abord sur les colonies américaines, et ensuite aux Etats-Unis. C’est autour de l’interprétation de son statut de Dissenter que se met en place la construction d’une figure d’identification qui traverse les époques, pendant la Révolution et la campagne abolitionniste notamment. Cette thèse cherche à identifier les mécanismes et les moments fondamentaux de cette transmission culturelle, à travers le parcours de plusieurs auteurs américains : le Quaker John Woolman, l’abolitionniste William Garrison, et le Transcendantaliste Ralph Waldo Emerson. On analysera comment l’évolution de la définition du dissent a permis à l’œuvre de Milton d’accompagner différents mouvements intellectuels américains. On verra comment, à partir de racines anglaises, les problématiques soulevées par Milton dans les années 1640 à 1660, ont pu frapper ses lecteurs transatlantiques comme étant pertinentes pour leur époque, et comment l’œuvre en prose de Milton a pu participer à la définition de la désobéissance civile. / : John Milton in his prose works had a deep influence in North America, first in the colonies, and then in the United States. His status as a Dissenter, subject to many interpretations, enabled him to remain relevant throughout the different stages of American history, allowing actors from the American Revolution or the abolitionist campaign to identify with him and his works. This dissertation aims at identifying the mechanisms and stages of this form of cultural transmission, through the study of several American authors: the Quaker John Woolman, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and the Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Rooted in the English Civil War, the issues raised by Milton between 1640 and 1660 nonetheless strike a chord within his American readers as germane to their time. This work shall also investigate how Milton’s prose work, through the shifting definitions of Dissent, directly influenced the concept of civil disobedience.

This study explores continuities in thought between Jonathan Edwards and Ralph Waldo Emerson by comparing their respective views on spiritual awakening. Their parallel ideas are discussed as results of similar perceptual dispositions which lead both to view awakening as an inner metamorphosis that leaves man less self-centered and more capable of a universal perception and appreciation of spiritual unity and beauty. Emphasized are parallels in Edwards's and Emerson's concepts of God, their views on the nature of awakening, their versions of preparation, and their thoughts about virtue and the awakened man. These continuities are also discussed as ideas that compose an underlying unity in American thought which unites the seemingly contradictory heritages of Puritanism and transcendentalism.

IN ENGLISH Ralph B. Perry's general theory of value was the most extensive and influential axiological project undertaken in the USA prior to WWII. While Perry's main goal is to provide a general definition of value and to describe the means of its criticism, the project also deals with the nature of special values, including aesthetic value. This dissertation thesis traces the aesthetic vein in Perry's theory, which is concentrated on the terms of aesthetic interest and its passive correlate, the aesthetic object. These are also the centerpieces of the definition of aesthetic value. First, interest and its object are defined in their general sense; next, they are defined in their specific aesthetic sense. Perry defines aesthetic interest as the interest in apprehension, and the object of this interest as a problematic intentional object with an index-predicate structure: its index is the localizable source of stimulus, and its predicate, the reflected act of apprehension. The final chapter is devoted to the forms of interplay between aesthetic interest and other interests, and the criticism of aesthetic interest from the aesthetic and moral standpoint. In Perry's theory, the aesthetic value belongs among the trinity of universal values. It is considered autonomous as long as the aesthetic interest...

In the Midst of Spoils is a setting, for SATB choir and small instrumental ensemble, of the poem "Blight," by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson's poem contrasts modern man's exploitative attitude toward nature with the more reverent attitude assumed by ancient or primitive cultures. This setting is in a single movement, approximately twenty minutes in duration, consisting of fifteen distinct sections.

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English writer and poet Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) introduced the term "parable-art" in his essay "Psychology and Art To-Day" (1935) as a means of describing works of art that are both message-bearing and moralistic in nature. Auden believed that art had the power to influence the affairs of the world, and felt it was the artist's obligation to work for the betterment of society. Though he ultimately rejected this conviction, Auden's influence on his English contemporaries in the 1930s was profound. Perhaps the most notable musician who embraced Auden's ideal was Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), who so often embedded moral, social, and humanitarian themes in his works. Britten was deeply influenced by Auden's philosophical views; therefore, it is logical that the term parable-art has been used to describe many of the composer's works. The expression, however, has never been applied to the works of other composers. I believe that many twentieth- and twenty-first-century works comprise similar parabolic characteristics and can be appropriately labeled parable-art. In this study, I attempt to demonstrate that Stephen Paulus's A Place of Hope (2001) and Ralph M. Johnson's This House of Peace (2008), two choral-orchestral compositions incorporating unconventional, non-literary texts, can be deemed twenty-first-century parable-art. These two compositions were chosen as the focus of this research due to three commonalities: 1) each work was commissioned by an organization dedicated to ethical and humanitarian ideals in healthcare; 2) humanitarian themes, such as gratitude, compassion, kindness, and love, are found in the texts of each composition; 3) each composer incorporated words of patients, family members, visitors, or caregivers at the medical facility for which the respective work was commissioned. Analyses include examinations of each composer's intent, the values of the organizations for which each work was commissioned, and the impact these values had on the selection of texts, the parabolic aspects of the texts, and the compositional techniques employed, which result in textual clarity and effective musical/dramatic affect, thus heightening the communicability of the message.

This thesis involves both editorial practice and literary analysis. In order to establish an editorial framework for the electronic scholarly edition of Dr. Ralph Barnes Grindrod's pamphlet <em>Slaves of the Needle</em>, I examine current issues in electronic textual editing. In the electronic scholarly edition, approximately twelve of the pamphlet's thirty-five pages are transcribed and encoded using TEI-based code. The second aspect of my master's thesis concerns the depiction of seamstresses in nineteenth-century British literature. <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> provides a non-fiction counterpart to the fictional seamstresses of mid-nineteenth-century literature. Using <em>Slaves of the Needle</em> as a basis for evaluating the accuracy of mid-nineteenth-century characterizations of seamstresses, I show that authors such as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Ernest Jones, and Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna were familiar with the working conditions of seamstresses. By conducting a close reading of certain representations of the seamstress in both fiction and non-fiction, I develop a theory of why the depiction of some aspects of the seamstress story are more accurate than others.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.