ENGL 385-01, American Visionary Literature, Spring 1999

Abstract

Harold Bloom writes that the Romantic poet’s assertion “is a metaphysic, a theory of history, and much more important than either of these, it is . . . a vision, a way of seeing, and of living a more human life.” The visionary writers that we will study articulate similar assertions about their revelations of humanity, nature, God, and society--all understood, of course, through emerging conceptions of what it is to be American. We will study these authors of the last hundred and fifty years to attempt to understand what is meant by the term “visionary”; each of the author’s unique social, metaphysical, national, historical, aesthetic, and mystical visions; and the contexts out of which these visions emerged. We will also consider the relevance of their “assertions” for us today.