Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism | Cranch, Christopher Pearse - David Robinson (essay date 1978)

David Robinson (essay date 1978)

SOURCE: Robinson, David. “The Career and Reputation of Christopher Pearse Cranch: An Essay in Biography and Bibliography.” Studies in the American Renaissance (1978): 453-72.

[In the following essay, Robinson surveys critical and biographical literature depicting Cranch as a Transcendentalist, poet, and painter.]

Christopher Pearse Cranch assured himself at least a small place in American literary history through his caricatures of Emerson's Nature, which suggested that the Transcendentalists shared a certain sense of humor about their common enterprise, and even about their leader Emerson. But just as his drawings suggest a different mood from the high moral seriousness usually associated with Transcendental philosophy, Cranch's entire career as a minister, poet, and artist encompasses a variety of interests and pursuits which, taken together, deepen our appreciation both of his own talents,...

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