{"id":{"repo_id":"wfu","oai_identifier":"oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/37670"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/wfu/oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/37670","repository":{"repo_id":"wfu","name":"Wake Forest University","base_url":"https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Ever-Evolving Art of Self-Reliant Reading","abstract":"Self-reliance is a significant component of contemporary Emerson scholarship, but few scholars have examined the way in which reading--almost unarguably Emerson's favorite pastime--can contribute to this canonical Emersonian idea. By delineating a passage in Emerson's journal which purports to entail the \"secret\" to self-reliance, I suggest that a key aspect of generating self-reliance is making your \"supposed deficiencies redundancy\" (Emerson, Journals VII: 521), which is the gradual abdication of self-doubt, and that this secret is manifest in passages that describe the act of reading throughout Emerson's Essays. However, that secret--like many of Emerson's concepts--evolves over his career and takes on new shades of meaning, and my project attempts to trace that evolution to arrive at a sketch of how reading can inform self-reliance. I use the essays \"History\", \"The Poet\", and \"Experience\" to demonstrate this evolution and also self-reliant reading's limitations. Ultimately, I hope to suggest that it's these very limitations that create the possibility for ethical conduct in an indeterminate world, thereby demonstrating the necessity of reading for living \"the good life\".","abstract_html":"Self-reliance is a significant component of contemporary Emerson scholarship, but few scholars have examined the way in which reading--almost unarguably Emerson's favorite pastime--can contribute to this canonical Emersonian idea. By delineating a passage in Emerson's journal which purports to entail the "secret" to self-reliance, I suggest that a key aspect of generating self-reliance is making your "supposed deficiencies redundancy" (Emerson, Journals VII: 521), which is the gradual abdication of self-doubt, and that this secret is manifest in passages that describe the act of reading throughout Emerson's Essays. However, that secret--like many of Emerson's concepts--evolves over his career and takes on new shades of meaning, and my project attempts to trace that evolution to arrive at a sketch of how reading can inform self-reliance. I use the essays "History", "The Poet", and "Experience" to demonstrate this evolution and also self-reliant reading's limitations. Ultimately, I hope to suggest that it's these very limitations that create the possibility for ethical conduct in an indeterminate world, thereby demonstrating the necessity of reading for living "the good life".","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Barton, Theodore Rend"],"institution":"Wake Forest University","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012","date_published":"2012","updated_at":"2026-07-27T22:01:33Z","subjects":["19th Century American Literature"],"languages":["en"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10339/37670","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Barton, Theodore Rend"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2013-01-09T09:35:19Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2013-01-09T09:35:19Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2012"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Wake Forest University"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["19th Century American Literature"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10339/37670"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Self-reliance is a significant component of contemporary Emerson scholarship, but few scholars have examined the way in which reading--almost unarguably Emerson's favorite pastime--can contribute to this canonical Emersonian idea. By delineating a passage in Emerson's journal which purports to entail the \"secret\" to self-reliance, I suggest that a key aspect of generating self-reliance is making your \"supposed deficiencies redundancy\" (Emerson, Journals VII: 521), which is the gradual abdication of self-doubt, and that this secret is manifest in passages that describe the act of reading throughout Emerson's Essays. However, that secret--like many of Emerson's concepts--evolves over his career and takes on new shades of meaning, and my project attempts to trace that evolution to arrive at a sketch of how reading can inform self-reliance. I use the essays \"History\", \"The Poet\", and \"Experience\" to demonstrate this evolution and also self-reliant reading's limitations. Ultimately, I hope to suggest that it's these very limitations that create the possibility for ethical conduct in an indeterminate world, thereby demonstrating the necessity of reading for living \"the good life\"."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Ever-Evolving Art of Self-Reliant Reading"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Barton, Theodore Rend"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2013-01-09T09:35:19Z"],"dc:date.available":["2013-01-09T09:35:19Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2012"],"dc:description.abstract":["Self-reliance is a significant component of contemporary Emerson scholarship, but few scholars have examined the way in which reading--almost unarguably Emerson's favorite pastime--can contribute to this canonical Emersonian idea. By delineating a passage in Emerson's journal which purports to entail the \"secret\" to self-reliance, I suggest that a key aspect of generating self-reliance is making your \"supposed deficiencies redundancy\" (Emerson, Journals VII: 521), which is the gradual abdication of self-doubt, and that this secret is manifest in passages that describe the act of reading throughout Emerson's Essays. However, that secret--like many of Emerson's concepts--evolves over his career and takes on new shades of meaning, and my project attempts to trace that evolution to arrive at a sketch of how reading can inform self-reliance. I use the essays \"History\", \"The Poet\", and \"Experience\" to demonstrate this evolution and also self-reliant reading's limitations. Ultimately, I hope to suggest that it's these very limitations that create the possibility for ethical conduct in an indeterminate world, thereby demonstrating the necessity of reading for living \"the good life\"."],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/10339/37670"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:publisher":["Wake Forest University"],"dc:subject":["19th Century American Literature"],"dc:title":["Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Ever-Evolving Art of Self-Reliant Reading"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T22:01:33Z"}