Hermitary - Gallery - Photos

About the photographs on this page

From this gallery of photos it is clear that solitude (if not hermits) is a significant subject among Amerian literati. Whether self-expressions in the poet Dickinson, the essayists Emerson and Thoreau, or the fiction weavers from Melville to Ellison, solitude tinges characters or characters are outright "isolatoes" to use Melville's felicitous term.
Perhaps the restless American psyche, complicated from the beginning with a legacy of migration from Europe, then migrations westward, undermined the cohesion of society to the point of a consciousness of aloneness or solitude. Perhaps the image of the hermit in John Burroughs or Sarah Orne Jewett is a mix of admiration and wonder that hesitates to fully explore the eremitic psyche but approximates it in curiosity. By the time we reach Frost, Jeffers, and the others through Abbey, the solitaire as an American phenomenon is clearly delineated, distinguished from European or Asian counterparts by it secularism. Where is it best represented? Frost's complex psyche, Jeffers' strong individualism, Ellison's social context, Kerouac's idealism always fallen short? To be sure, Gibran is not a product of United States culture, with images, contexts, and tales too exotic for American credit. Gibran is a universal figure, fully embracing a world of literary and philosophical resources.