Abstract
This article focuses on an author scarcely studied by historians: the traveler and thinker John “Walking” Stewart (1747-1822). Almost all available records (produced during his lifetime or later on) portray him as an “eccentric”. According to Benjamin Rush, the author himself would have said that “as long as the center of ordinary conduct is error”, he would remain in “eccentricity forever”. His texts are permeated by themes such as vitalism, Spinozism and a fascination with India, which led historians to qualify him as a predecessor of “romantic vegetarianism”, “post-structuralism”, “Owenite socialism”, and “Post-humanism”. Based on existing historiography on the subject, texts by the author (in particular, Apocalypse of Nature and The Revelation of Nature), and several primary sources (mainly his obituary and texts by his friend De Quincey and his relative Brande), this article aims to understand and to overcome the paradigm of eccentricity in the interpretation of Stewart’s life and works. This effort will allow us to better understand the importance of the author and the very nature of Late Enlightenment. The key intention is, therefore, to offer alternative ways of understanding the life and the works of “Walking” Stewart.
Keywords:
Late Enlightenment; Intellectual History; Age of Revolutions