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University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 2013 LIGHTNING-ROD MEN, MAGNETIC LIVES, BODIES ELECTRIC: ELECTROMAGNETIC CORPOREALITY IN EMERSON, MELVILLE, & WHITMAN James Patrick Gorham University of Rhode Island, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation Gorham, James Patrick, "LIGHTNING-ROD MEN, MAGNETIC LIVES, BODIES ELECTRIC: ELECTROMAGNETIC CORPOREALITY IN EMERSON, MELVILLE, & WHITMAN" (2013). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 129. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/129 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LIGHTNING-ROD MEN, MAGNETIC LIVES, BODIES ELECTRIC: ELECTROMAGNETIC CORPOREALITY IN EMERSON, MELVILLE, & WHITMAN BY JAMES PATRICK GORHAM A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2013 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION OF JAMES PATRICK GORHAM APPROVED: Dissertation Committee: Major Professor Mary Cappello Martha Rojas Galen Johnson Nasser H. Zawia DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2013 ABSTRACT From the time of American independence to the antebellum period, Americans labored to distinguish their collective identity from that of their colonial forebears in a world increasingly shaped by technological advances, industrial transformations, and scientific developments. Discoveries regarding electricity and electromagnetism resulted in inventions that would especially revolutionize human life. The advent of the lightning-rod in the mid-eighteenth century challenged prior notions that a destructive lightning bolt was an inevitable consequence of divine will, with any interference with that power understood as sacrilege. The rod symbolized a new, Franklinian American, who, steeped in Enlightenment science and philosophy, could stand up against religious and cultural dogma. In a post-Franklin America, one could re-invent oneself —and embody divine power—by harnessing and mastering nature, replacing old gods with new “gods” of technology and reason. Lightning-Rod Men, Magnetic Lives, Bodies Electric examines a strange and powerful epistemological and representational turn inside this discourse: those moments in which antebellum American writers imagined the human body itself as a lightning rod, as a centralized conductor that could use, transform, or synthesize this newly understood power beneficially. Images of the body as a lightning-rod came to signify a new American corporeal identity, one that allied the spirit of Franklinian independence and self- reliance with a materially manifest, independent and self-reliant body. Could a body’s ability to channel, control, and convey electrical current, all the while remaining insulated from its harm, indicate some exceptional, supernatural power, or a form of artistic genius? This is the question that came to pre-occupy the writers whom I treat. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman exemplify the antebellum American struggle to grasp the significance of emerging electromagnetic technologies and determine how this new knowledge could illuminate our understandings of the human body. Investigating the prominence of electromagnetic metaphors and representations of corporeality in Emerson’s essays, Melville’s Moby- Dick and “The Lightning Rod Man,” and Whitman’s 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, I find ambivalent readings of electromagnetism’s significance for constructions and conceptualizations of the human body vying with a theme of electromagnetic conductivity as a trope for genius: the image of an integrated body, mind, and soul that could directly translate the influence of nature into words and actions. Although all three writers espouse self-reliance and liberation from external influences, they share an impulse to create imagery that would pose the body of the attractive or enlightened poet, artist, performer, or orator as an electrified automaton, influenced and guided by the forces of nature. In their formulations, the attractive poet or performer seems marked for success by remaining impervious to the danger of conducting electrical currents, while synthesizing these currents and conveying them to audiences through “electrified” or “electrifying” performances. Through such imagery, these writers not only anticipated later constructions of corporeality, but also invented them through language. Such imagery continues to inform metaphors of corporeality today, as exemplified by clichéd language used to characterize celebrities. These “dead metaphors” reveal larger frameworks of cultural metanarratives that inform our understanding of a range of affective traits or personal characteristics, from spirituality to enthusiasm, from attractiveness to enlightenment, from animation to genius. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Perhaps it goes without saying that embarking upon a task as gargantuan as the composition of a dissertation cannot be done without the help, wisdom, and encouragement of many others. Still, it must be said, and must not be forgotten. The engagements with texts, development of ideas, and maturity of mind that are all required to bring the process to successful fruition are feats that are impossible to achieve in a vacuum. It is only with sufficient illumination and guidance that one who would take on such an endeavor might ever reach the finish line. Luckily, I have had the good fortune of encountering amazing teachers and scholars who helped me arrive at this point along my educational path, and I would be remiss if I did not give them my heartiest and most sincere thanks for all the support they have given me along the way. These individuals not only helped to provide me the proverbial “sparks” that ignited my passion for this project, but they were also the catalysts for the lightning- bolt epiphanies that formed the seeds from which this project grew. First and foremost, I must extend my most heartfelt thanks to my major professor, Dr. Mary Cappello, whose tireless support, advice, and encouragement truly made all of this possible. At a tearful, caffeine-fueled meeting at the appropriately named White Electric Café in Providence, she spurred me to work through my frustrations and fears and bring this project to completion when it seemed at its most daunting and impossible. By always believing in my abilities as a writer, scholar, and researcher, she helped me to overcome my doubts and persist to the end. Moreover, she motivated me to overpower the many forces of resistance that would have left me, like Emerson’s poet, “stuttering” and “stammering.” This current project, and in iv particular its explorations of automata and the relation between frozenness and fluidity, is in many ways the sequel to—and natural outgrowth of—my previous research performed while a student in Professor Cappello’s graduate courses: namely, my work on the significance of nineteenth century dolls in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, and my exploration of influx and efflux in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Also, due to a tip given to me by Professor Cappello, I attended a truly enlightening field trip to the Morris Museum, sponsored by the Brooklyn-based organization Observatory. This trip opened my eyes to the profound significance of nineteenth century automata for constructions of the body and embodiment in antebellum America, offering me invaluable insight that helped me to frame and construct my argument in this dissertation, and, in particular, in my chapter on Whitman. Professor Cappello’s creativity, intellectual vigor, and impressive scholarly work ethic have all been a constant inspiration to me throughout my graduate career at URI, and I can honestly say that I could not have completed this project without her. I must also thank all of my other committee members for their time and efforts in support of my project. I am very thankful for the support of Dr. Martha Rojas, whose expertise in eighteenth and nineteenth century American literature was so vital to my success. Professor Rojas not only guided me to many texts that were beneficial to me throughout the research and writing process, but also posed many questions that helped me to sharpen and hone the focus of my argument. I am extremely appreciative of Dr. Galen Johnson for his kindness in joining my committee at a late stage in the process, and I am so grateful for taking his summer philosophy course, which was invaluable in illuminating the finer points of philosophical works ranging v from Marx, to Foucault, to Butler, just to name a few examples. Moreover, his scholarship on Emerson renders him a particularly worthy critic of my work here, thus making his presence on my committee truly valued and esteemed. I heartily thank Dr. Valerie Karno for also joining my committee at a late stage. My interest in affect, animation, and the body—and, in particular, my interest on how these phenomena play out in American popular culture—was very much a direct product of her intellectually rewarding and stimulating graduate course. It was in very large part the thinking and research that resulted from readings and conversations in her course that led me to the conclusions at which I arrive in my concluding chapter here. Finally, I must offer my most sincere

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