Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson PDF

Author: Maurice York

Publisher: Wrightwood Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 0980119006

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Emerson once wrote that the times we are born in are the best of times, if only we know what to do with them. His life spanned the crucial years of the nation's youth-the first tests of its shop-new Constitution; the explosive expansion into the untamed West; the great conflagration of the Civil War and the destruction of slavery; and the pains of rebirth and reconciliation that carried the United States to the eve of emerging as a world power. In the midst of this swirl of upheaval and change, Emerson turned his attention inward to the citizen, the individual, who must find his or her own inmost truth and bring that one fact of being to perfect expression in the world-must learn to believe the faintest presentiment of the self against the testimony of all history. As a lecturer and essayist, Emerson was a catalyst who sought through his daily work to wake the long-slumbering soul of the farmer, mechanic, businessman, politician-to show the common person that the divine and extraordinary are present in every hour of the day. His efforts triggered a cultural tidal wave, inspiring a generation of authors, poets, teachers, and social activists who built the very foundations of culture in America. This biography takes a fresh look at Emerson through his Journals to trace the story of his own self-development, and the hidden life's work that makes him as relevant to our time as to his own.

Emerson's Life in Science

Emerson's Life in Science PDF

Author: Laura Dassow Walls

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1501717391

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Ralph Waldo Emerson has traditionally been cast as a dreamer and a mystic, concerned with the ideals of transcendentalism rather than the realities of contemporary science and technology. In Laura Dassow Walls's view Emerson was a leader of the secular avant-garde in his day. He helped to establish science as the popular norm of truth in America and to modernize American popular thought. In addition, he became a hero to a post-Darwinian generation of Victorian Dissenters, exemplifying the strong connection between transcendentalism and later nineteenth-century science.In his early years as a minister, Emerson read widely in natural philosophy (or physics), chemistry, geology, botany, and comparative anatomy. When he left the church, it was to seek the truths written in the book of nature rather than in books of scripture. While visiting the Paris Museum of Natural History during his first European tour, Emerson experienced a revelation so intense that he declared, "I will be a naturalist." Once he was back in the United States, his first step in realizing this ambition was to deliver a series of lectures on natural science. These lectures formed the basis for his first publication, Nature (1836), and his writings ever after reflected his intense and continuing interest in science.Walls finds that Emerson matured just as the concept of "the two cultures" emerged, when the disciplines of literature and science were divorcing each other even as he called repeatedly for their marriage. Consequently, Walls writes, half of Emerson's thought has been invisible to us: science was central to Emerson, to his language, to the basic organization of his career. In Emerson's Life in Science, she makes the case that no study of literary history can be complete without embracing science as part of literature. Conversely, she maintains, no history of science is complete unless we consider the role played by writers of literature who helped to install science in the popular imagination.

Self Reliance

Self Reliance PDF

Author: Peggy Caravantes

Publisher: Morgan Reynolds Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781599351247

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Ralph Waldo Emerson became a Unitarian minister when he was twenty-five years old, but soon began to question his commitment to the denomination's beliefs. Eventually, he resigned his ministry, choosing instead to write and speak about his own ideas. In the process, he became the most influential writer and philosopher in the United States. Emerson's life was marked by ill health and family tragedies that challenged his commitment to his doctrine of self-reliance. He found solace in both his love of nature and his commitment to the American Transcendental Movement, which emphasized an individual's intuitive ability to live a spiritual life free of religious doctrine and social customs. He popularized the group's ideas in his essays and public lectures. Over a long and productive life, Ralph Waldo Emerson made himself into the most important figure in the first flowering of a truly American culture. Book jacket.

The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson PDF

Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Publisher: Modern Library

Published: 2009-09-30

Total Pages: 880

ISBN-13: 0307419916

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Introduction by Mary Oliver Commentary by Henry James, Robert Frost, Matthew Arnold, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry David Thoreau The definitive collection of Emerson’s major speeches, essays, and poetry, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson chronicles the life’s work of a true “American Scholar.” As one of the architects of the transcendentalist movement, Emerson embraced a philosophy that championed the individual, emphasized independent thought, and prized “the splendid labyrinth of one’s own perceptions.” More than any writer of his time, he forged a style distinct from his European predecessors and embodied and defined what it meant to be an American. Matthew Arnold called Emerson’s essays “the most important work done in prose.” INCLUDES A MODERN LIBRARY READING GROUP GUIDE

Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson PDF

Author: Tiffany K. Wayne

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780816073580

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Ralph Waldo Emerson, the greatest of the Transcendentalists, is often considered to be the central thinker in American history. In essays such as "Self-Reliance" and poems such as "Concord Hymn," he gave voice to ideals that Americans have held dear ever since. Critical Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is a reliable and up-to-date resource for students interested in this prolific author. This illustrated volume examines Emerson's life and 140 of his most important works, including all of his major essays and 60 of his poems. Coverage includes: A concise but thorough biography Entries on major books; lectures; essays, such as "Self-Reliance," "Nature," and "The Over-Soul"; poems, such as "Concord Hymn," "Brahma," and "Merlin"; and more Entries on related people, places, and topics, including Henry David Thoreau, Concord, the Transcendental Club, Unitarianism, the Dial, and more Appendixes, including a chronology of Emerson's life, a bibliography of his works, and primary and secondary sources.