The Sentimental Eloquence of the Black American Scholar: Ellison’s Invisible “Man Thinking” and Feeling

Authors

  • Silke Schmidt International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, Justus Liebig University Giessen

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5283/copas.197

Keywords:

Invisible Man, American Scholar, sentimentalist mode, democracy, mourning, eloquence, oratory, Emersonianism, Obama

Abstract

Grief is one of the most powerful sentiments depicted in literary works throughout human history. In the cultural history of the U.S., the open expression of grief by means of public mourning mostly stands in the African American tradition. One of the most outstanding African
American literary figures of the twentieth century is Ralph Ellison. His Invisible Man“ (1952) represents an epitome of modern sentimentalism when it comes to the political project of mourning America. Despite the wide attention dedicated to the work, critics have paid scarce attention to Ellison’s close ties to nineteenth-century sentimentalism. This especially applies to the author’s ambivalent relation to Ralph Waldo Emerson and his vision of the “American Scholar.“ The present article analyzes the complex employment of Emersonian thought “revised à la Ellison“ (Lee 336) in a contextual reading which regards Invisible Man and its sentimental function within the larger network of literary, social, and political discourse. It argues that Ellison’s Invisible Man“ reflects Emerson’s American Scholar as “Man Thinking“ and feeling. The mourning of a free and equal America thus turns out to be a powerful element of the  sentimental mode. The close-reading analysis shows in how far both authors can be read to be writing in the sentimental tradition which, in contrast to many critics' opinions, has not lost its appeal but continues to echo in the language of contemporary political figures such as Obama.

Author Biography

Silke Schmidt, International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture, Justus Liebig University Giessen

Silke Schmidt currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the International
Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC) at Justus Liebig University Giessen. From
2005 to 2010 she studied American Studies, Political Science and Communication Studies at
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
In 2011/12 she spent two semesters as a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor. Schmidt completed her Ph.D. in early 2013 with an interdisciplinary dissertation on
contemporary Arab American life writing and media framing. Her research interests include
Arab American literature and culture, gender studies, economics and interdisciplinary theory
development. She has given several talks and conference papers in the U.S. and Europe.
Currently, Schmidt works on her habilitation project which investigates the gendered
definition of rationality in the literature on financial crises in the U.S.

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Published

2014-03-11

How to Cite

Schmidt, Silke. “The Sentimental Eloquence of the Black American Scholar: Ellison’s Invisible ‘Man Thinking’ and Feeling”. Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies, vol. 14, no. 2, Mar. 2014, doi:10.5283/copas.197.

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