Pollock/Raverty

I downloaded the Raverty article and read it.  Thanks.  I enjoyed.

The general approach he takes in this article is.....very much the type of work I think we would aspire to in the DA.  Such that:  when one has read the article, perhaps, your previous notion of what it takes to be a "leader" in the USA has shifted?  

It is curious and interesting to me that just about the full range of considerations in thie piece are ones that Ralph Waldo Emerson made in 1838, in part in "The American Scholar".   Then there is spillover in other essays where certain themes are elaborated.   I only mention should  Raverty's observations seem new or unusual.   It's all part of a long-standing approach, a definition of a certain kind of romance (mythological or otherwise) that is part of the American scene or the American Difference.  

I am more familiar with the musicians who hung out at the Cedar Bar.   But it was the mixing of artists and musicians and poets thats so interesting in the NYC scene at that time.   It, in effect, is a little bit of model for interdisciplinary work in the arts. I may have a book on this knocking around somewhere if you are interested.

What I think would be really good to do:  is to to take this entire essay and create a set of marginal notes (could be done with PDF annotations).  These should all be framed as critical questions (not answers or refutations) about the authors assertions, documentation, proofs etc.   They really need to be your genuinely skeptical takes since  the genius of a certain kind of writing is that it's convincing at one level.  But perhaps not under a fuller kind of scrutiny.   Put differently, Is the author just "making another myth" and certain readers will merely line up behind it believing.   That is not a doctoral dissertation (for better or worse).   Something a bit more is needed.

I think this would be a good exercise if this is the kind of work you want to do and this is the general topic as well.   After such an exercise, I think you'll come away with a better sense of your point-of-departure from such work.  One that leads into your own questions, developed contexts and eventually, insights.

Allan