Synopses & Reviews
Lee demonstrates how Melville, Emerson and others tried to find rational solutions to the slavery conflict.
Synopsis
Maurice Lee demonstrates how the slavery crisis became a crisis of philosophy. Authors including Poe, Stowe, Douglass, Melville, and Emerson tried - and failed - to find rational solutions to the slavery conflict. Drawing on antebellum moral philosophy, political theory, and metaphysics, Lee brings a fresh perspective to the literature of slavery.
About the Author
Maurice S. Lee is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Missouri.
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. Absolute Poe; 2. 'Lord, it's so hard to be good': affect and agency in Stowe; 3. Taking care of the philosophy: Douglass's common sense; 4. Melville and the state of war; 5. Toward a transcendental politics: Emerson's second thoughts; Epilogue: an unfinished and not unhappy ending.