Vitalist Nation

Abstract

This article describes romantic vitalism as a postsecular tradition of energy mysticism and traces its elaboration over the last two centuries. It identifies a tension in vitalist thinking, which can tend either toward unregulated self-assertion or toward the proposition that “everything that lives is holy” and deserving of respect. This tension emerges in Blake, Whitman, and Nietzsche. And it distinguishes two of the most important literary manifestos of mid-twentieth century America, Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Kerouac’s On the Road. Published in 1957 and immediate bestsellers, these works suggest an America divided by its allegiance to contradictory forms of vitalism.