German literature played an important part in the formation of the minds and imaginations of progressive nineteenth-century New England intellectuals; this study looks especially at the Transcendentalists of the Concord circle, presenting five portraits of authors and their worlds -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott -- showing that each had a peculiarly productive relationship with the literature and intellectual traditions of Germany. The two main chapters of this study are devoted to Emerson and Fuller. Emerson learned German...
German literature played an important part in the formation of the minds and imaginations of progressive nineteenth-century New England intellectuals;...