Robert D. Richardson (1934–2020)
Author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire
About the Author
Works by Robert D. Richardson
Associated Works
Booknotes: America's Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas (1997) — Contributor — 429 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Richardson, Robert Dale, Jr.
- Birthdate
- 1934-06-14
- Date of death
- 2020-06-16
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Country (for map)
- USA
- Birthplace
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
- Place of death
- Hyannis, Massachusetts, USA
- Cause of death
- a fall
- Places of residence
- Medford, Massachusetts, USA
Concord, Massachusetts, USA - Education
- Harvard University (BA, PhD)
Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, USA - Occupations
- historian
biographer - Relationships
- Dillard, Annie (wife)
- Organizations
- University of Denver
Wesleyan University - Awards and honors
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature ∙ 1998)
Guggenheim Fellowship (1990)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 17
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 1,540
- Popularity
- #16,722
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 17
- ISBNs
- 33
- Favorited
- 1
Richardson made it easy to become immersed in his quest to uncover the mind of the man. He deftly cuts to the essence of some of the complex philosophies at large in this remarkable period of ferment when a thriving Boston was growing rapidly and young boys of 14 started at Harvard with a multilingual Classical education, Germany was seen as the centre of intelligence, and the College Professors were handsome, erudite, well-read 25 year-olds trained in rhetoric. Oh, to have been one of them! Glimpses of remarkable women such as Mary Wooly, Margaret Fuller and Caroline Sturgis, also drift through the pages as they figured in Emerson's life. It was the time of George Eliot and I'm tempted to read Middlemarch.
What I particularly admired about these 100 short chapters is the way they propelled me through the great arc of narrative so that I was able to take advantage of the circularity and precision with which Richardson constructs the story of Emerson by surveying what he read and thought. Every now and then I almost felt that I had a sense of the man. I think I might have liked him.
I've marked many passages but ultimately, as Emerson sinks into what today feels like a premature old-age, I was unsatisfied with any deeper understanding of my own thread of interest; the notion of ‘nature’. I was probably looking in the wrong place.
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