Insane Angels, Insolvent Tramps, and Prophetic Loafers
Insane Angels, Insolvent Tramps, and Prophetic Loafers
(14) Insane Angels, Insolvent Tramps, and Prophetic Loafers - Lee McBride, Department of Philosophy
Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks of poets as divinities that walk among us, insane angels sent into our world as to an asylum, who break out into their native music and utter, at intervals, the words they heard in heaven. William James suggests that only mystics, dreamers, insolvent tramps or loafers have a chance at attaining any breadth of insight into life’s meaning on a large objective scale. This seminar will focus on these idiosyncratic characters, who (in the midst of their rambling) sporadically bring forth startling beauty and insight. Is there value to unstructured moments of divine leisure, to engaging life poetically? Should teachers today attempt to reproduce such habits and dispositions in their students? To address such questions, we will make use of the philosophy, literature, poetry, and music of the “insane angels” of American culture, including: Emerson’s “The Poet,” “ Henry David Thoreau’s “Walking,” Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes (selections), Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road,” William James’s “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,” Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s “2/15,” David Dondero’s “Rothko Chapel,” and Bill Callahan’s “Riding for the Feeling.”