Romance of Individualism in Emerson and Nietzsche

Ralph Waldo Emerson and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, though writing in different eras and ultimately developing significantly different philosophies, both praised the individual's wish to be transformed, to be fully created for the first time. Emerson and Nietzsche challenge us to undertake the task of identity on our own, in order to see (in Nietzsche's phrase) "how one becomes what one is."
The Romance of Individualism in Emerson and Nietzsche examines the argument, as well as the affinity, between these two philosophers. Nietzsche was an enthusiastic reader of Emerson and inherited from him an interest in provocation as a means of instruction, an understanding of the permanent importance of moods and transitory moments in our lives, and a sense of the revolutionary character of impulse. Both were deliberately outrageous thinkers, striving to shake us out of our complacency.
Rather than choose between Emerson and Nietzsche, Mikics attends to Nietzsche's struggle with Emerson's example and influence. Elegant in his delivery, Mikics offers a significant commentary on the visions of several contemporary theorists whose interests intersect with those of Emerson and Nietzsche, especially Stanley Cavell, Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek, and Harold Bloom.

David Mikics is an associate professor of English at the University of Houston. He is the author of The Limits of Moralizing: Pathos and Subjectivity in Spenser and Milton, as well as articles on contemporary literature and literary theory