Elisa New

In her book The Regenerate Lyric, Elisa New presents a major revision of the accepted historical account of Emerson as the source of the American poetic tradition. New challenges the majority opinion that Emerson not only overthrew New England religious orthodoxy but founded a poetic tradition that fundamentally renounced that orthodoxy in favor of a secular Romanticism. In the years between the Unitarian controversy of early to mid nineteenth century and the rise of Neo-Orthodoxy a century later, New argues, the very orthodoxy that Emerson pronounced moribund found new life and sanctuary in the unlikeliest of places: the American poem. She contends that Emerson's reinvention of religion as a species of poetry was tested and found wanting by the very poetic innovators Emerson addressed and that a countertradition is evident in his major heirs - Whitman, Dickinson, Crane, Stevens, Frost, and Lowell. Emerson's own poetry failed to live up to his poetics and revealed instead an inherent paradox: the renewal of religion as, or in, poetic theory alienates religion from its life principle - theology - and disables the poem as well. Elisa New examines the poems in great detail, offering searching readings and concluding finally that "it is 'regeneracy' rather than 'originality' that is the American poet's modus operandi and native mandate."

"Timely and beautifully written, New England Beyond Criticism provides a passionate defense of the importance of the literature of New England to the American literary canon, and its impact on the development of spirituality, community, and culture in America. An exploration and defense of the prominence of New England's literary tradition within the canon of American literature. Traces the impact of the literature of New England on the development of spirituality, community, and culture in America. Includes in-depth studies of work from authors and poets such as William Bradford, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, Susan Howe, and Marilynne Robinson. Examines the place and impression of New England literature in the nation's intellectual history and the lives of its readers"--