Romanticism and Pragmatism

Romanticism and Pragmatism

Also by Ulf Schulenberg: AMERICANIZATION- GLOBALIZATION- EDUCATION (ed. with Gerhard Bach and Sabine Broeck) LOVERS AND KNOWERS: MOMENTS OF THE AMERICAN CULTURAL LEFT ZWISCHEN REALISMUS UND AVANTGARDE: DREI PARADIGMEN FÜR DIE APORIEN DES ENTWEDER- ODER

Romanticism and Pragmatism Richard Rorty and the Idea of a Poeticized Culture Ulf Schulenberg Visiting Chair of American Studies, University of Siegen, Germany

2015 Ulf Schulenberg Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-47418-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire,RG21 6XS Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-50149-6 ISBN 978-1-137-47419-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137474193 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schulenberg, Ulf, 1966- Romanticism and pragmatism : Richard Rorty and the idea of a poeticized culture / Ulf Schulenberg, visiting chair of American Studies, University of Siegen, Germany. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. 1. Rorty, Richard Criticism and interpretation. 2. Pragmatism in literature. 3. Romanticism. 4. American literature History and criticism. I. Title. B945.R524S36 2015 191 dc23 2014036780 Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Part I Pragmatism and the Idea of a Literary or Poeticized Culture 17 1 F.C.S. Schiller: Pragmatism, Humanism, and Postmetaphysics 19 2 Richard Rorty s Notion of a Poeticized Culture 31 3 Roland Barthes, Marcel Proust, and the désir d écrire 42 Part II From Finding to Making: Pragmatism and Romanticism 63 4 Books, Rocks, and Sentimental Education: Self- Culture and the Desire for the Really Real in Henry David Thoreau 65 5 Strangle the singers who will not sing you loud and strong : Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and the Idea of a Literary Culture 80 6 Poets, Partial Stories, and the Earth of Things: William James between Romanticism and Worldliness 93 7 John Dewey s Antifoundationalist Story of Progress 106 8 Toolmakers rather than discoverers : Richard Rorty s Reading of Romanticism 120 Part III Ethics, the Novel, and the Private Public Distinction 135 9 Resuscitating Ethical Criticism: Martha Nussbaum and the Moral Significance of the Novel 139 10 John Dewey and the Moral Imagination 145 11 Redemption from Egotism : Richard Rorty, the Private Public Distinction, and the Novel 154 12 Soucie- toi de toi- même : Michel Foucault and Etho- Poetics 169 Part IV Pragmatism, Race, and Cosmopolitanism 175 13 The myth- men are going : Richard Wright, Communism, and Cosmopolitan Humanism 179 v

vi Contents 14 Where the people can sing, the poet can live : James Baldwin, Pragmatism, and Cosmopolitan Humanism 196 Part V Conclusion 209 Notes 219 Bibliography 237 Index 246

Acknowledgments Earlier versions of some chapters have been published elsewhere, but have here been substantially rewritten. I wish to thank the publishers and editors for their permission to reprint these texts. An earlier version of Chapter 3 appeared in New Literary History Vol. 38, No. 2 (Spring 2007): 371 87; Copyright 2007 New Literary History, The University of Virginia; publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press. An earlier version of Chapter 4 was published in Amerikastudien/American Studies Vol. 51, No. 2 (2006): 167 91; publisher: Winter Verlag, Heidelberg. Chapter 5 was originally published in Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Vol. 31, No. 1 (2006): 39 61; publisher: Günter Narr Verlag, Tübingen. An earlier version of Chapter 6 was published in Susanne Rohr and Miriam Strube (eds.), Revisiting Pragmatism: William James in the New Millennium, Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2012, 103 22. Portions of Chapters 2 and 8 were originally published in Becoming the poets of our own lives : Pragmatism and Romanticism, Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Vol. 34, No. 2 (2009): 293 314; publisher: Günter Narr Verlag, Tübingen. I would like to express my gratitude to Benjamin Doyle, commissioning editor at Palgrave Macmillan, for his belief in this project. Furthermore, I want to thank an anonymous reader for Palgrave Macmillan for a careful and nuanced reading of my manuscript and for numerous helpful suggestions. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the following people whose comments and suggestions undoubtedly strengthened my argument: Jason Ambroise, Coco Dupont, Asha Kadushin, Richard Nate, and Geneviève Sollers. vii