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Reading Resistances in Ralph Waldo Emerson and José Martí

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2020

ANDREW TAYLOR Open the ORCID record for ANDREW TAYLOR [Opens in a new window]
ANDREW TAYLOR*
Affiliation:
Department of English Literature, University of Edinburgh. Email: Andrew.Taylor@ed.ac.uk.
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Abstract

This article takes as its starting point a consideration of the ways in which the ideological methodology of “New Americanist” criticism has closed off possibilities of reading that might choose to value ambiguity, contradiction, and excess – elements which militate against the discursive neatness of critique. In readings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and José Martí, I argue that resolutely politicized interpretations of Emerson fail to do justice to the unstable texture of his prose. In turn, Martí's writing about the United States is more uneven, surreal and excessive than a straightforward account of postcolonial resistance allows. Both Emerson and Martí exhibit a discursive flexibility that puts pressure on readings driven by inflexible ideological parameters seeking to position both men within frameworks of political quietism and postcolonial revolution respectively. I explore how the idea of revolution is imagined by Emerson in ways that run counter to our more conventional understanding of political transformation. To be sure, Martí's revolutionary actions in the cause of Cuban independence were tangible in ways that Emerson could never have countenanced for himself; nevertheless Emerson's understanding of resistance as differently located and performed provoked in Martí a high, and consistent, degree of sympathy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 841 - 862
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2020

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References

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37 OC VII, 227: “Todo es expansión, comunicacíon, florescencia, contagio, esparcimiento … Nacen a caballo, montadas en relámpago, con alas.”

38 Martí, Selected Writings, 46; OC VII, 227: “se deshacen en chispas encendidas; se desmigajan. De aquí pequeñas obras fúlgidas.”

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45 OC XIII, 22: “A veces, parece que salta de una cosa a otra, y no se halla a primera vista la relación entre dos ideas inmediatas.”

46 OC XIII, 20: “en permanente vuelo a lo alto.”

47 OC XIII, 21: “La lectura estimula, enciende, aviva, y es como soplo de aire fresco la hoguera resguardada, que se lleva las cenizas, y deja al aire el fuego.”

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49 OC IX, 125: “lo que asombra allí es, el tamaño, la cantidad, el resultado súbito de la actividad humana, esa inmensa válvula de placer abierta a un pueblo inmenso, … esa movilidad, ese don de avance, ese acometimiento, ese cambio de forma … esa marea creciente, esa expasividad anonadora e incontrastable, firme y frenética, y esa naturalidad en lo maravilloso; eso es lo que asombra allí.”

50 OC IX, 125: “los rostros cadavéricos de las criaturitas.”

51 OC IX, 127: “un desventurado hombre de color que, a cambio de un jornal miserable, se está día y noche con la cabeza asomada por un agujero hecho en un lienzo esquivando con movimientos ridículos y extravagantes muecas los golpes de los tiradores.”

52 OC IX, 126: “Otros pueblos – y nostros entre ellos – vivimos devorados por un sublime demonio interior, que nos empuja a la persecución infatigable de un ideal de amor o gloria; y cuando asimos, con el placer con que se ase un águila, el grado del ideal que perseguíamos, nuevo afán nos inquieta, nueva ambición nos espolea, nueva aspiración nos lanza a nuevo vehemente anhelo, y sale del águila presa una rebelde mariposa libre, como desafiándonos a seguirla y encadenándonos a su revuelto vuelo.”

53 José Martí, “General Grant” (1885) in Foner, Inside the Monster, 71–122, 80; OC XIII, 83–115, 89: “los que arrancan de la Naturaleza, pujantes y genuinos, activos y solitarios.”

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56 José Martí, “Carta a Bartolomé Mitre y Vedia,” my translation; OC IX, 17: De mí, no pongo más que mi amor a la expansión – y mi horror al encarcelamiento del espíritu humano.”

57 Giles, Global Remapping, 195, 197.

58 José Martí, “From Notebook 8,” in Selected Writings, 76; OC XXI, 242: “Hay algo de buque en toda casa en tierra extranjea. Dura aquella sensación de indefinible disgusto. Se siente oscilar la tierra, y vacilar sobre ella nuestros pies. A veces, se sujeta uno de las paredes, - y por donde otros van firmes, camina uno tambalcando. El espíritu está fuera de equilibrio.”