RALPH WALDO EMERSON(1803-80)

most influential 19th C writero reacting to o reacting against

2nd of 5 surviving boys Father :

o William Unitarian minister dead when RWE = 8

mother :o succession of boarding houseso for $$ to send boys to Harvard Collegeo (minister-training)

Mary Moody Emerson : (1774-1863)o aunt (paternal)o influence on RWE intellectual growtho inspirationo guiding his reading & challenging his thinking

education :o Boston Latin School (1812-16) 9-13o Harvard College (1817-21) 14-19o Harvard Divinity School (1825) 22o preaching (1826)o ordained (1829)

Unitarianism (WE Channing) Bible = revelation of God’s intentions Man = not innately deprived question divinity of Jesus

German thinkers (Kant) “higher criticism” Bible = just an historical document, not the direct word of God miracle stories = myths of other cultures

Eastern thought - Hindu & Buddhist poetry

struggle w/Christina beliefs occupations :

o taught at brother William’s school (“hopeless Schoolmaster”)o for young women after college

1829 :o ordained Unitarian minister

self-reliance individualism non-conformity harmony between man & nature anti-institutionalism Over-Soul God Immanent

o Divine in all people, all thingso Divine in Natureo

originality, unconventionality anti-tradition

Second Church of Bostono married Ellen Louisa Tucker

dead of tuberculosis few years later @ 19 caused more religious questioning & doubt

1835 :o remarried Lydia 'Lidian' Jackson o moved to Concord, Mass. (rest of life)o 4 kids

Waldo = dead 1842 1832 :

o resigned from church so disillusioned that stopped given Eucharist

o health = ailingo travels Europe 1832-33o met English Romantics

1833: o returned from Europeo started to receive 1st wife’s legacy o ($1,000 per year) no longer concerned @ making a living writing & lecturing

1836 :o Nature (anonymous)

"Nature," "Commodity", "Beauty", "Language," "Discipline", "Idealism," "Spirit," "Prospects," "The American Scholar", "Divinity School Address," "Literary Ethics" "The Method of Nature," "Man the Reformer," "Introductory Lecture on the Times" "The Conservative," "The Transcendentalist," "The Young American"

TRANSCENDENTALISTS :o pejorative o anti-Lockean (Locke saw MIND as passive receptor of sense impressions)o pro-Romantic (Coleridge, MIND as actively intuitive & creative)o Emerson, Margaret Fuller, HD Thoreau, Theo. Parker, Bronson Alcott, Eliz. Peabody

1838 : Divinity School Address called atheist 1840-44 :

o started The Dialo w/Margaret Fullero official publication for the Transcendentalistso his lectures

1841 :o Essays: First Series –o "History," "Self-Reliance," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "Love," "Friendship," "Prudence," o "Heroism," "The Over-Soul," "Circles," "Intellect," “Art"

1842: o son, Waldo, dies at 5o RWE never recovers from

Deaths father wife son

1844 :o Essays: Second Series –o "The Poet," "Experience," "Character," "Manners," "Gifts," "Nature," "Politics," o "Nominalist and Realist," "New England Reformers"

several lecture tours of Europe (1,500+) 60+

o signs of senility 4-27-82:

o 78o pneumoniao dead

http://www.online-literature.com/emerson/ Complete Works: http://www.rwe.org/ Self-Reliance text: http://www.online-literature.com/emerson/588/

STYLE: o elliptical thoughto demanding on readero epistemological (human knowledge, limits & validity) questso maddeningly abstract at times

READERS: o “creative reading”o reader’s active interpretive role

in generating meaning & new ways of seeing the world

o respect for the independent spirit of readerso prompts readers to trust their own ideaso welcomes readers taking those ideas in new & even different directions

READER-RESPONSE skepticism of language to embody truths originality don’t stop w/me make your own way

EMERSON & REFORM: skeptical of movements that required group participation personal : Transcendentalism society : abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage literature : rejects American literary nationalism as timid, imitative “American Scholar”

“The American Scholar” (1837) America’s “declaration of cultural independence” Original title = “An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, [Massachusetts,]

August 31, 1837”o before the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society

a college fraternity composed of the 1st 25 in each graduating class annual meetings =

the occasion for addresses from the most distinguished scholars & thinkers of the day LITERARY NATIONALISM (#3):

o exhortation to break dependence on “courtly muses of Europe”o a new call for “American” literatureo call for new generation of American writers moved by the “Divine Soul”

OUTLINE: o Introduction (1-7)

Scholar = 1 function of many “Man Thinking” (vs. thinking man)

1 Body, several functions Winthrop “Model”

o Influences Nature (8-9) The Past (esp. Books) (10-20) Action (21-30)

o Duties of the Scholar & Views on contemporary American society (31-45) I. break from past:

o call for “American” thinkerso America = source of inspirationo an independent American intelligentsia

Allegory of 1 Man o Platoo each part does its thing for the good of the wholeo each w/its own function

II. A o NATURE & Man = linked

circular, eternal order (organize the many through CLASSIFICATION)

o study nature = know thyself (self-knowledge – since similar/parallel) II. B

o Past, esp. in BOOKSo “book worm” = worst scholaro proper use of books = inspiration

books – inspire – innovation, originality, creativity

o proper pedagogy of colleges – not rote memorization but creation, originality

knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation (Bloom’s Tax) II. C

o ACTION = imperativeo physical worko thought = an actiono thought & action = vicious cycle

III. o DUTIES of Scholar –

“self-trust” self-reliance perseverance through poverty, obscurity,…

o (PURITAN, REVOLUTION) to be repository of wisdom for others teacher, not hoarder

bravery, courageo America today –

3 stages of life: Greek/Classical (childhood), Romantic (youth), Philosophical/Contemplative (adult)

Today = Period of Self-Criticism not a bad thing dissatisfaction, disillusionment = marks of transition period

AMERICAN SCHOLAR :o independento self-reliant (self-trust)o courageouso originalo brave, not timid

---------------------------------- GREAT AWAKENING :

o “when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests.”

Edwards (religious), Paine (political), Emerson (intellectual, literary) Analogy of the One Man:

o “It is one of those fables which out of an unknown antiquity convey an unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was divided into fingers, the better to answer its end.”

each PART w/separate function for the good of the WHOLE

to reuniteo America = amputated

“The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk and strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”

“In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.”

Man Thinking vs. thinking man CLASSIFICATION :

o way of ordering the Chaos of our impressions of Natureo power of the mindo “Classification begins. To the young mind everything is individual, stands by itself. By and by it

finds how to join two things and see in them one nature; then three, then three thousand; and so, tyrannized over by its own unifying instinct, it goes on tying things together, diminishing anomalies, discovering roots running under ground whereby contrary and remote things cohere and flower out from one stem. It presently learns that since the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation and classifying of facts. But what is classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign, but have a law which is also a law of the human mind? The astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary motion. The chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity, in the most remote parts. The ambitious soul sits down before each refractory fact; one after another reduces all strange constitutions, all new powers, to their class and their law, and goes on forever to animate the last fiber of organization, the outskirts of nature, by insight.”

power of ANALOGY Paine, Madison, Emerson

“transmuting life into truth” GOD-LIKE :

o Man = divine o thought = CREATIONo “Yet hence arises a grave mischief. The sacredness which attaches to the act of creation , the act of

thought, is instantly transferred to the record. The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man. Henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit. Henceforward it is settled the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly the book becomes noxious.[17] The guide is a tyrant. We sought a brother, and lo, a governor. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, always slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking, by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke,[18] which Bacon,[19] have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.

o Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. Hence the book-learned class, who value books, as such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third

Estate[20] with the world and soul. Hence the restorers of readings,[21] the emendators,[22] the bibliomaniacs[23] of all degrees. This is bad; this is worse than it seems.

o Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst.” BOOKS = “They are for nothing but to inspire.”

unoriginal parrots, regurgitaters, book worms pedagogy

originality : “I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own

orbit , and made a satellite instead of a system .” planet analogy

SOUL :o democracy, equalityo “The one thing in the world of value is the active soul,--the soul, free, sovereign, active. This every

man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man”

DIVINE :o “To create,--to create,--is the proof of a divine presence.”

1:1 relationship to GOD :o through Natureo through creation – of thoughto “When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of

their readings.” “CREATIVE READING”:

o Books = meant for inspirationo “so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge”o “There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and

invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.”

COLLEGE (pedagogy): o no rote memorizationo no teaching to the testo synthesis, creationo “Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science

he must learn by laborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office,--to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns and pecuniary [$] foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year.”

SELF-KNOWLEDGE :o NATURE = MAN

o EXPERIENCE = teachero “The world--this shadow of the soul, or other me , lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys

which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself. I launch eagerly into this resounding tumult. I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work, taught by an instinct that so shall the dumb abyss be vocal with speech. I pierce its order; I dissipate its fear; I dispose of it within the circuit of my expanding life. So much only of life as I know by experience, so much of the wilderness have I vanquished and planted, or so far have I extended my being, my dominion. I do not see how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exasperation, want , are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as a loss of power.

o It is the raw material out of which the intellect molds her splendid products. A strange process too, this by which experience is converted into thought, as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin. The manufacture goes forward at all hours.”

o Romantic: Experience, recollected in tranquility, transforms into Thought life experiences, from childhood onward experience creates our VOCABULARY

“Life is our dictionary.” best way to learn grammar

industriousness (action) o Ben Franklin

Prosperity = bad o “He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and

communicating heroic sentiments, noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of history.”

Bradford SELF-RELIANCE :

o “SELF-TRUST” o “These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the

popular cry. He and he only knows the world. The world of any moment is the merest appearance.”o “In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be,--free and brave.”

Fear = from ignoranceo “Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can

do for myself.” Scholars today =

o “Men in history, men in the world of to-day, are bugs, are spawn, and are called "the mass" and "the herd."”

Age of Introspection :o “Our age is bewailed as the age of Introversion.”o not a bad thingo unlike Hamlet: “"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."”

Romantic vs. Neo-Classical :

o “This idea has inspired the genius of Goldsmith,[82] Burns,[83] Cowper,[84] and, in a newer time, of Goethe,[85] Wordsworth,[86] and Carlyle.[87] This idea they have differently followed and with various success. In contrast with their writing, the style of Pope,[88] of Johnson,[89] of Gibbon,[90] looks cold and pedantic. This writing is blood-warm. Man is surprised to find that things near are not less beautiful and wondrous than things remote. The near explains the far. The drop is a small ocean. A man is related to all nature. This perception of the worth of the vulgar is fruitful in discoveries. Goethe, in this very thing the most modern of the moderns, has shown us, as none ever did, the genius of the ancients.”

o Romantic = fresh, new, ORIGINAL not enslaved to the past in mere imitation of the classics

the INDIVIDUAL :o “Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is the new importance

given to the single person. Everything that tends to insulate the individual--to surround him with barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state--tends to true union as well as greatness.”

o analogy GREAT AWAKENING of the American Scholar :

o “The scholar is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another that should pierce his ear, it is--The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is for you to know all ; it is for you to dare all . Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid , imitative , tame . Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant . See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no work for any one but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these, but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust, some of them suicides.

o Patience, Perseverance (PURITAN): “What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful now

crowding to the barriers for the career do not yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience,--patience; with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace the perspective of your own infinite life…”

o OWN = “American” “We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own

minds. o Real Men :

“A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.”

SELF-RELIANCE(1841)

EPIGRAPHS: o Ne te quaesiveris extra

“Do not look outside of yourself for the truth.” (don’t imitate) 1st century Roman satirist Persius Satires (Bk.1, l.7)

o “‘Man is his own star…’” Beaumont & Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune 1613 Orbit motif

original, unconventional “set at naught books and traditions” “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within,

more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.” Art = inspiration, teaches “us to abide by our spontaneous impression” * “There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that

imitation is suicide;” BRAVERY, COURAGE :

o “The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried . ”

o “Bravely let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession.We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards . ” *

originality, thought, creation = DIVINE man’s mind makes him God-like

PROVIDENCE :o God has put you where you are, to see what you see – trust in that.o Self-relianceo ** “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has

found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.”

STAGES of MAN :o “What pretty oracles nature yields us….”o Infancy

SELF-RELIANCE

o Youtho *Puberty

independence (of thought, concern what others think) no care for consequences no care for others’ ideas, interests, bias un-bribable unafraid “neutral, god-like independence” “unaffected , unbiased , unbribable , unaffrighted innocence ”

o Adulthood SOCIETY =

o conformity o “Self-reliance is an aversion.”

NONCONFORMITY: o “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist . He who would gather immortal palms must

not be hindered by the name of goodness , but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind . Absolve you to yourself , and you shall have the suffrage of the world.”

o nonconformity o nothing = sacredo complete self-reliance = egocentric – your own mind

you = center of the universe NO right & wrong :

o they = arbitraryo “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily

transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names , to large societies and dead institutions.”

if I’m connected to God, I know right & wrong & thus don’t need someone else’s rules, laws to remind me of what I already know

1:1 relationship no need for middleman (church, government, laws, …)

nothing lasts anti-tradition, anti-institution

SKEPTICAL @ abolition movement: o anti-charityo anti- charity as an institution – demanding group participation (more blind conformity)O FAITH VS. WORKS

(white guilt, limousine liberals) do it for show – people are watching, expecting everybody’s doing it *not from the heart, not genuine “truth is handsomer than the affectation of love”

GENUINENESS: o “My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be

genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.”o true to yourself – to your own values, beliefs (Polonius in HAMLET)o SELF-RELIANCE :

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

don’t need others’ approval, support, permission ** POWER ** freedom ego = formed, solid no care what others think self-actualization, autonomy

CONFORMITY & IDENTITY:

o “The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.”

o Who is the real you – if you keep aping others’ beliefso “If you maintain a dead church […]I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are.”o “the emptiest affectation”o MASKS :

“‘the foolish face of praise,’ the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved, but moved by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable sensation.”

unnatural – morally & physiologically Wind Socks:

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY of NEEDS self-actualization = top traits of self-actualized =

o efficient perception of realityo comfortable w/self, otherso spontaneouso objective/mission-centeredo autonomous o child-likeo identifies w/otherso forms strong bondso comfortable in solitudeo no sarcasmo at one w/universe, calm

o blown by the prevailing windso whatever opinion = popularo “… have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs.”

TODAY MOB MENTALITY – lemmings

o wind sockso SOCIETY = stupid o “Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is

easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.”

CONSISTENCY :o “The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or

word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.”

another FEAR that keeps us from self-reliance afraid to appear to contradict ourselves don’t be afraid to change your mind don’t be married to a mistake

o “this corpse of your memory”o “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds , adored by little statesmen and

philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” *****o “To be great is to be misunderstood.”

TRUE SELF: o “I suppose no man can violate his nature.”o “Character teaches above our wills.o “Be it how it will, do right now.”

** “Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature.”

o “Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age;”o “An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man;”o “all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.”

Fable of the DRUNK: o taken, dressed, treated as a kingo SHK: Taming of the Shrew

No CLASS distinctions o a great man = a great mano EQUALITY – human mind

INTUITION:

o the SOURCE spontaneity instinct inspiration “involuntary perceptions”

o – from GODo all = connected

1:1 relationship w/GOD: o Christianity = institutionalized religiono institution o “The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps .

It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, — means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it, — one as much as another. All things are dissolved to their centre by their cause, and, in the universal miracle, petty and particular miracles disappear. If, therefore, a man claims to know and speak of God , and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country , in another world, believe him not . ”

no need for a middle man AMERICANS:

o “Man is timid and apologetic ; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage.”

o “live in the present” **** 1:1 relationship w/ GOD:

o “This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul .”

God of the Bible maybe not even the Bible – maybe just God in NATURE not interpretations by men

o “We are like children who repeat by rote…”o “If we live truly, we shall see truly.”o To live truly = “When a man lives with God”

LANGUAGE = insufficient: o “probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off remembering of the intuition”

“THE GOOD” o = Living w/God, reconnected to the SOURCEo God-focused, see nothing elseo road less travelledo SELF-ACTUALIZATION :

past/beyond emotion to tranquility, peace at 1 w/the world

all things for good (PURITANS) beyond space & time new plane of existence focused, goal-oriented

o “When good is near you, when you have life in yourself , it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—— the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience. You take the way from man , not to man .

o […] The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation , perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right,

o and calms itself with knowing that all things go well .” POWER

PURE SOUL:

o living w/Godo “becoming”o “that the soul becomes ; for that for ever degrades the past , turns all riches to poverty , all reputation

to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside” no past, traditions no materialism no regurgitation, aping, mimicking no reputation beyond institutions beyond (human) right & wrong (only divine r/w)

ORBIT MOTIF – throughouto “Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits.”

THE SOURCE: o “the ever blessed ONE”o “the Supreme Cause”

GOD within: o the divine within the human/mortalo less the soulo more the human mind

either way, the point is to live within & not without internal & not externally motivated the soul/mind engaging the world cannot be affected by trivial, ephemeral

define the world OR be defined by the world ALONE:

o isolationo hard to focus on the inner when the external world = always intruding

above family & friends don’t be concerned w/the trivial things don’t be side-tracked by things of this world keep your eyes on the prize - focus

o “We must go alone. Isolation must precede true society ”o “At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles .

Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, — 'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion.”

We give others the power over us:o “The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me

but through my act.” ***o self-enslavemento we have the power, control

BEYOND FAMILY & FRIENDS: o these = distractionso help me, go w/me OR stay away from me

students studying, blowing off parties AA out of rehab & avoiding old friends not selfishness but self-preservation, self-importance, self-improvement priorities eyes on the prize – focused, goal-oriented

o “Henceforward I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. […]but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. […]I must be myself. […] If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier . If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. […] I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly.”

SELF-RELIANCE = not licentiousness: *****o not an excuse to do whatever you wanto “The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and

mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes . But the law of consciousness abides.”

living God-focused by the “eternal law” or The Truth

so won’t abuse this, won’t use for selfish ends won’t use this toward warped understanding of religion

DIVINE INSIDE: o God inside us, (the real “God’s image”)o “something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to

trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!”

Cry Babies:o whiners o arm-chair quarterbackso “The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding

whimperers . We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an

ambition out of all proportion to their practical force, and do lean and beg day and night continually. […] We are parlour soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born .”

o BRAVERY Courage – don’t be afraid

SELF-RELIANCE in ALL aspects of life: o religion o educationo pursuitso modes of livingo associationso propertyo speculative views

(1) PRAYERo not supposed to be selfisho such prayers = “are diseases of the will”o similarly – regret, discontentment

“Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.”o similarly – creeds, institutions

“As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect” institutionalized religion = means & not an end

“But in all unbalanced minds, the classification is idolized, passes for the end …” (2) TRAVELLING

o no need to travel abroad – FOREIGN o America has everything you needo “It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling ”o “He carries ruins to ruins. […] Travelling is a fool's paradise. […] that place is nothing.”o “My giant [my “sad self”] goes with me wherever I go.”

(3) TRAVELLINGo “But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual

action.”o Travelling = symptom of bigger diseaseo imitation in school restlessness travellingo America should be your source, your inspirationo EDUCATION = bad

“The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness.”o American ART : literature, painting, sculpture = imitativeo Insist on yourself; never imitate . ****

(4) SOCIETYo “As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our spirit of society. All men plume

themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.o Society never advances .”o not amelioration, improvement

all men = the same

no progression “Society is a wave.”

water = same wave moves on

o “For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts..” ****

TODAY – technology “we have […] lost by refinement some energy” “and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not

lost by refinement some energy” “but in Christendom where is the Christian?””

o de las Casas, Nunez **** “The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good.” e-waste:

“It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery, which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before”

Back to Basics: o “The great genius returns to essential man.”o Dec. 21, 2012?

No improvement:o “Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The

same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.”

o people = waveo water = nation, nature, human nature

RELIANCE on property, governments:o anti-materialistico something that can be easily taken away

self-reliance God inside cannot be taken away

Matthew 6:19-21 – God & Mammon “19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,

and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth

corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body

shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the

light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the

other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

BANDWAGON Fallacy: o “Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. ”o think that just b/c many think that way or even “Resolve in multitude” that that makes it right,

correct, morally righto still coming from MAN & not God

SELF-RELIANCE: o “O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is

only as a man puts off all foreign support , and stands alone , that I see him to be strong and to prevail.”

o “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

THEMES: anti-“FOREIGN”

o literary & cultural xenophobia ** “FOREIGN”: **

o foreign to the soulo not @ Godo external

other people’s opinions of us, reputation past ideas institutions other nations’ art, style, society, government…literature materialistic goods, property

anti-Europe o Euro-chauvinism (British & German = superior)

anti-imitation o no foreigno imitation of foreign style, literature, art, government,…o originalityo non-conformity

anti-materialism o property

anti-institutions (institutionalized religions, charities,….) originality

o nonconformityo non-traditiono non-institution

SELF-RELIANCE: o individualistso rely on yourself for moral, literary, artistic, social tasteso trust your inner voice

trust your instincts stick to your guns (“to thine own self be true”)

o don’t rely upon opinion of otherso who cares about reputation, public opiniono bravery, courage

dare “choose to chance the rapids / and dare to dance the tides” GB “The River”: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6931417793347126181

o anti-consistency

o consistency for its own sakeo married to a mistake

o be flexible, open-minded, adaptableo be open to change your mind – when wrong

TRANSCENDENTALISM :o innate knowledge of right/wrongo link to Divine, God, Source, One

gift from God (in God’s image)

o inherent morality, before & beyond teaching (“inalienable rights”)

Paine, Jefferson, Madisono INTUITION , conscienceo not from Education, Experience, Senseso moral guiding force (inner voice, inner light, soul, conscience)o inner knowledge =

transcendent form of knowledge superior to external knowledge (sense experience, knowledge through senses) a priori knowledge vs. a posteriori (E. KANT)

o internal SELF-RELIANCE individualism

ROMANTICISM :o primacy of the Individual vs. societyo individual vision vs. institutions, conventionso institutions = false, deaden natural instinctso intuition = preferred form of knowledgeo self-relianceo non-conformity

IDENTITY :o If we conform to others & others’ ideas, who are we?o like Rip Van Winkle, Emerson poses a question of Identity Formation, Ego Formation, Personality

in RVW, it was link to place (who we are = where we’re from – change place = change us) in Emerson, it was enslaved to the past, to society, to public opinion, family & friends

ORBIT motif :o man = his own staro not orbiting someone else’s planeto from epigram & throughout

NEW RELIGION: o reworks Christianity (his brand)

soul morality in God’s image anti-materialism (God v. Mammon)

o a post-ENLIGHTENED, ROMANTIC Christianity w/o superstitions or creeds or blind faith or dogma

spirituality w/o the Institution (PAINE) but more Intuitive than Rational (more than cold Reason) yearning for something more, swinging pendulum Intuition, inspiration, insight equality: all humans can receive Divine Inspiration (1:1 relationship) 1:1 relationship w/God

no need for middlemen, priests, religions Faith vs. Works:

o not @ showo what you do – esp. if it’s untrue to your heart

living a lie: o untrue to your own principles, beliefs o PAINE ( = prostitution)

STYLE: aphorisms :

o succinct statements of truth, opinion extended proof :

o thorough development of his thesis through o examples, repetition, & reinforcement

allusions o to historical & literary figures

Socrates, Galileo, Copernicus, Napoleon, Shakespeare, Franklin, Dante, Scipio o allusions = embodiment of Emersonian qualities (prove his point)

figurative language : o to reinforce, clarify a pointo similes, metaphors, analogies

http://www.transcendentalists.com/self_reliance_analysis.htm http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/emerson-essays/critical-essays/understanding-

transcendentalism.html

AMERICAN ROMANTICISM creative powers of individual mind

o almost god-like powers regenerative power of nature, American landscape

o “America is a poem in our eyes” (“The Poet”) limits of historical traditions, associations stultifying effects of established institutions mystical glories of pre-socialized infancy

o infancy of USA self-reliance non-conformity possibility of the miraculous in the here & now

TRANSCENDENTALISM Emerson’s “the Transcendentalists” (1842 lecture)

o “The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy.”

Kantiano through his anti-Lockean (only known through experience)o a priori knowledge (vs. a posteriori)

Fuller, Thoreau, Whitman Boston, New England the existence of an ideal spiritual reality

o that transcends the empirical & scientific o is knowable through intuitiono (intuition as means to knowledge)o (intuition vs. empirical/scientific)

power of the creative imagination possibility of the miraculous divinity of the self

o (Creation, link to One through soul/mind/conscience) History:

o Americanismo Biblical Criticism in Germany (Kant)o Post-Enlightenment (good questions, but cold), Romantic shifto Eastern religions (Hindu, Buddhism)o equality (none superior)