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Indo-American Encounters in Melville and Thoreau: Philosophy, Commerce, and Religious Dialogue

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India in the American Imaginary, 1780s–1880s

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Abstract

Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville provide complementary approaches to the encounter between India and America as developed in the literary production of the Transcendentalists and their critics. As a Transcendentalist writer shaped by Emerson who was exceptionally engaged by Hindu religious and philosophical texts, Thoreau engaged India on the level of ideas, finding the subcontinent to be a source of timeless wisdom that could contribute more to his pursuit of virtue and self-culture than the mundane events in American newspapers. Herman Melville, a figure engaged by Transcendentalism but also quite critical of the movement’s ahistorical qualities, presents a more nuanced approach to the Indo-American encounter, emphasizing material realities, travel, and trade even as he kept religious and philosophical matters in view.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of Texas, El Paso, TX, USA

    Brian Yothers

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  1. Brian Yothers
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA

    Anupama Arora

  2. William Paterson University of New Jersey, Wayne, New Jersey, USA

    Rajender Kaur

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Yothers, B. (2017). Indo-American Encounters in Melville and Thoreau: Philosophy, Commerce, and Religious Dialogue. In: Arora, A., Kaur, R. (eds) India in the American Imaginary, 1780s–1880s. The New Urban Atlantic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62334-4_4

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