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On the Passing of the First-Born Son

Both Ralph Waldo Emerson's and W. E. B. Du Bois' firstborn sons tragically died at very young ages. Drawing from the essays where they write about their grief, I explore Du Bois' “subversion” and “revision” of Emerson's thought by contrasting their visual metaphors: Emerson's “focal distancing” and Du Bois' practice of “second sight” and seeing through “the Veil.” I show how the disruptive particular event of the deaths of their sons causes both to challenge the idealist elements of their respective gazes. I draw upon Theodor Adorno to explore the larger lessons of these reconsiderations. In recognizing the seductive dangers of the idealist gaze and the value of the disruptive particular, Adorno explicitly theorizes what Emerson and Du Bois also come to appreciate, in a less overt way, in their moments of loss.