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Home Editorial Authors' Responses Guidelines for Reviewers About Us Home Search Every Field Editorial Search Authors' EMERSON'S PROTÉGÉS: MENTORING AND MARKETING Responses By David Dowling (Yale, 2014) 352 pp. Guidelines Reviewed by Andrew McMurry on 2016-12-12. For Click here for a PDF version. Reviewers Click here to buy the book on Amazon. About Us Masthead David Dowling aims to give us here "a deeper explanation of the professional fates of those in whom Emerson invested generous time, energy, creativity, and capital for their literary success" (4). At the same time, by working through Feedback the effects of Emerson's mentoring on these varied figures, Dowling aims to construct an "aggregate portrait of his signature method and style of patronage, which has received little critical attention" (5). Indeed, we learn much about Emerson's pedagogy and theory of influence: whom he selected to mentor and why; what sorts of genius he found in actually existing humans; how he struggled with the question-begging prospect of actually teaching self-reliance, creative autonomy, and obedience to method; and how he met the challenge faced by all mentors: separating personal feelings and allegiances from professional judgement and responsibility. In an assured and knowing style, Dowling often furnishes what feels like a window on the innermost sanctums of the Emersonian circle. On Henry David Thoreau: "It is testament to Emerson's conscientious mentorship and patronage that he was constantly supplying his pupil with the tools of his own independence, from his initial funding of his study of British poetry...to providing him with the real estate for his cabin at Walden" (89-90). On Margaret Fuller: "What perhaps pays homage most to Emerson's successful mentorship...was that she passed on precisely the kinds of courage he taught to her" (68). On Christopher Cranch: "Emerson's intervention would rid Cranch of his passive theological calling, encouraging him instead to consider vocation a conscious choice to be mediated by and implemented in a real market with a discerning and paying audience" (130-31). If there is any defect in Dowling's prose it is his occasional lapse into a fan-clubby ventriloquism that channels a nineteenth- century discourse of genius: "Emerson now turned toward cultivating Thoreau's creative mind, which vibrated through these roots to the bottomlessness of the human soul, the infinitude of the sky and universe beyond, and the sheer power of immortality" (75). A key point--the role of the market in conferring and confirming success as a creator--is given especial weight in Dowling's study of Samuel Gray Ward. In many ways, Ward was Emerson's ideal pupil: though not as personally close to Emerson as Fuller or Thoreau, he stood out from the other protégés--Cranch, Charles King Newcomb, Jones Very, and William Ellery Channing--by proving most adept at balancing his art and his life. While Emerson appreciated and promoted his work, Ward married well, succeeded as a banker, and, most important, pursued his aesthetic and spiritual ventures without making continuing demands on Emerson for patronage. More than any of the other mentees, Ward did not need Emerson. In that respect, Dowling observes, "he was in Emerson's eyes a master at life and a finished man" (167). In citing these examples of Emerson's effectiveness in mentoring, I may have given the impression that Dowling chiefly highlights his protégés. But this book is ultimately about Emerson's development as mentor, confederate, and instigator. If you want to learn more about lesser known figures in his orbit such as Very, Ward, and Newcomb, you will be disappointed. This book surveys their lives mostly to show how they impinge on Emerson and reveal his capacities as the pater familias of Transcendentalism. Very is a good example. Dowling charts his astonishing rise and even more astonishing departure from the Transcendental circle only insofar as they reveal Emerson's nuanced and sympathetic cultivation of the (likely) bipolar young poet. But that is as it should be; there is no need for Dowling to retell the lives of Thoreau or Fuller or even Cranch. He aims instead to show how their aspirations as writers and thinkers dovetailed with Emerson's mission to forge a new American nous. "The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself," declared Emerson in "The American Scholar." Given this debility, Dowling shows how Emerson pushed his mentees to aim higher and feed voraciously on the new possibilities of a new nation and a new universe of ideas. So how was Emerson as a teacher? Mostly excellent, occasionally vexatious, rarely self-serving, and never uninspiring. In short, Emerson's apprentices got the man in full. But what they made of his tutelage, finally, was up to them. His goal was always to point them "to the sources of inspiration in nature to realize their personal and professional autonomy" (286). Dowling argues convincingly that "all were better for having worked with Emerson in varying degrees of aesthetic and professional growth" (286). And crucially, for those who think teaching is a one-way street, "all expanded and enriched Emerson's own thought, spurring him to new heights" (286). If this book sometimes seems to take too seriously Emerson's own valorization of the concept of genius, it nonetheless remains an impeccably written, well-researched, and immensely valuable study of Emerson's mentorship: an important but mostly neglected aspect of his contribution to American life and letters. Andrew McMurry is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo. Leave a comment on Andrew McMurry's review. Name: Email: Comments: I'm not a robot reCAPTCHA Privacy - Terms Submit About Us Copyright © Dartmouth College, 2008-2020.
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