Carlyle, Emerson, and the Voiced Essay

Abstract

This chapter presents the writings of Carlyle and Emerson as key examples of the nineteenth-century ‘voiced essay’. It explores how, in Britain and America during the period, a new vogue for public lectures meant that essayists were increasingly becoming orators. Rather than being simply an aesthetic or formal quality, however, the chapter also shows how, in the case of Emerson and Carlyle, the ‘voiced essay’ also allowed writers to engage with ideas of orality and speech on the level of theme: reimagining their readerships as circles of listeners, and using tropes of ventriloquism and vocal orchestration in the service of distinct political visions. Thinking about nineteenth-century essays as multi-levelled charismatic vocal and social performances provides a new way of thinking about the genre and its audience at a moment of productive tension between competing forms of social authority.