Abstract

The Indian, Rabindranath Tagore, and the American, Ralph Waldo Emerson, were poets and lecturers with a philosophical bent whose insights sprang from a common grounding in absolute idealism and who played a prominent role as public sages in the cultural renaissance of their countries. They are perfect figures for comparative study. Yeager Hudson pursues that study with appropriate familiarity, willingness to expound the intricacy, and admirably equitable judgment. He doubly rewards the general reader by introducing us to each of the philosophical thinkers and to both as related and contrasting. It is agreeable to follow the philosophical balance sheet dressed for each master under the several headings of epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Paired epigraphs piquantly open each chapter, and Hudson gathers remarkable quotations from both authors to feed his analysis. The flavor of Tagore and Emerson emerges from these pages. Hudson astutely recognizes Emerson’s genius as writer in the rhetorical mode, rather than, as with Tagore, in the lyrical. Emerson excels as essayist, Tagore as storyteller.