Emerson and the History of Rhetoric

Much has been written about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s fundamental contributions to American literature and culture as an essayist, philosopher, lecturer, and poet. But despite wide agreement among literary and rhetorical scholars on the need for further study of Emerson as a rhetorical theorist, little has been published on the subject. This book fills that gap, reenvisioning Emerson’s work through his significant engagement with rhetorical theory in the course of his career and providing a more profound understanding of Emerson’s influence on American ideology.

Moving beyond dominant literary critical thinking, Thompson argues that for Emerson, rhetoric was both imaginative and nonsystematic. This book covers the influences of rhetoricians from a range of periods on Emerson’s model of rhetoric. Drawing on Emerson’s manuscript notes, journal entries, and some of his rarely discussed essays and lectures as well as his more famous works, the author bridges the divide between literary and rhetorical studies, expanding our understanding of this iconic nineteenth-century man of letters.

Roger Thompson is an associate professor and the graduate coordinator of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University. He is the coeditor of four books, including The Rhetoric of St. Augustine of Hippo: “De doctrina Christiana” and the Search for a Distinctly Christian Rhetoric. His articles and book chapters on rhetoric and Emerson have been published in a number of journals and books. He is a member of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society advisory board.