Emerson's Sublime Science explores relationships among Emerson's
poetics, theory of the sublime, and engagement with electromagnetism.
The book illustrates how Davy's chemistry and Faraday's physics revealed
to Emerson a sublime universe in which matter is boundless electrical
force. It argues that Emerson translated this discovery into a sublime
writing style crafted to galvanize readers with the insight that matter
is energy. In illuminating Emerson's project, this study also uncovers
connections among British Romanticism, American Romanticism, and
nineteenth-century science.