Loren Eiseley's exploration of The unexpected universe

ABSTRACT This essay explores the use of evolutionary and transcendentalist language in a book of contemporary American personal essays, The Unexpected Universe by Loren Eiseley. The influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson is particularly evident in Eiseley's ideas and in the form of the personal essay he develops to express those ideas. I focus on Eiseley's transformation of the Emersonian eye into a figure for an emerging awareness of humanity's own evolutionary past. In the process, I examine the suitability of the essay form as a medium for Eiseley's vision and consider the implications of presenting the scientific doctrine of evolution in the language of the transcendentalist tradition.