In these novels, Bellow highlights a moral crisis, arising from humankind's despiritualization and dehumanization, which, he believes, is responsible for an ongoing dichotomy in the modern world.
Robinson tells the story of a mind at work, focusing on Thoreau's idea of "natural life" as both a subject of study and a model for personal growth and ethical purpose.
These questions are central to the work of many nineteenth-century authors writing in the wake of transcendentalism, and Kohler offers examples from the writings of Douglass, Hawthorne, Dickinson, Howells, and Jewett that form a cascade of ...