Eating Alone

Li-Young Lee has been referred to as Postmodern Transcendentalist and is often considered a highly spiritual poet. Transcendentalism, a philosophical and literary movement, originated in America during the mid-1800s. It was characterized by its reverence for the natural world and its focus on transcending the self to achieve a higher spiritual awareness. One of the movement’s main founders was Ralph Waldo Emerson who read many sacred Eastern texts in a time when Eastern religion and philosophy was largely unexplored by the Anglo-Western world. These texts inspired Emerson and his contemporary Henry David Thoreau to encounter their environments with a dutiful and devout gaze.

Like Emerson and Thoreau, Lee exhibits active and thoughtful observation in his work. His observations are merely the catalyst for further metaphysical inquiry, and his goal is often to achieve universality rather than occupy a personal, concrete self. Lee differs from Emerson and Thoreau, however, in that he does not outwardly reject the ego. Rather, he employs the ego through the speaker of his poems and allows the speaker to undergo a spiritual journey. Though both Emerson and Thoreau wrote poetry, they are more known for their philosophical prose and essays. Lee, known primarily for his poetry, incorporates their philosophies into his work but veers away from overt philosophical language.

Lee stands out from other contemporary poets of his time in that his subjects were rarely political ones. Given that his past was so heavily affected by governmental politics, Lee’s preference of the spiritual over the political is noteworthy.