ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the work from the standpoint of “transcendence.” Though dialectical transcendence and dramatic catharsis have many areas in which the jurisdictions covered by the two terms overlap, there are also terministic situations in which they widely differ. The simplicity of the procedures embodied in Ralph Waldo Emerson essay is exceptionally useful in this regard, as a way to bring out the contrast between transcendence and catharsis. Viewed as a sheerly terministic or symbolic function, that’s what transcendence is: the building of a terministic bridge whereby one realm is transcended by being viewed in terms of a realm “beyond” it. In dialectical transcendence, the principle of transformation operates in terms of a “beyond.” Dialectical transcendence depends upon the quite pedestrian resources of terminology. Emerson’s scheme for transcendence was propounded before his fellow-townsmen had lost their sense of a happy, predestined future.
