Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edna H.L. Turpin (Introduction)

American essayist, lecturer, and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. A champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, Emerson published numerous essays and delivered more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Genres: Classics, Philosophy, Poetry, Biography, Essays, Nonfiction, Nature

130 pages, Paperback

Published September 28, 2011

About the author

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau.

The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.

Reviews

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read "Nature" and the first series of Essays in the collection of his works. My motivation to read Emerson is my project to read the American authors in the Hall of Fame of Great Americans (yes, this Hall of Fame exists, though no longer active). Emerson was in the first batch of American authors to be elected into the Hall of Fame when it opened in 1900. I read some Emerson in school, but it was time to revisit his work as an adult, and I'm certainly glad I did. I enjoyed the readings very much - I read one essay at a time with breaks in between, rather than reading straight through. I was inspired, challenged, comforted (and sometimes bored) with the essays. I intended to read Essays II as well, but after completing all the pieces in Essays I, I was ready to move on to other authors. If I return to Emerson, I think I would re-read the essays I already read - they are meaty and worth more time. If you haven't read Emerson or haven't read him since high school, I recommend reading at least an essay or two.

[Sabne Raznik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written. As easy to read as to hear, I suppose, since these were originally a series of lectures. I say: proceed with caution. In these essays, Emerson demonstrates himself to be an unabashed ableist, in a culture which was the birth of eugenics no less. Was he a eugenicist? I have no evidence of it. But as for his preference for ability and virility to the exclusion of those born in such a state which favours living in the mind over living through the body, that he himself made clear. Therefore, I will no longer quote Emerson out of context, as he is often quoted. I will keep the book, in order to keep complete the series of books of which this edition is a part, and to allow any who inherit it from me to read his essays in whole and decide for themselves. I will not throw out the baby with the bath water. But I do advise strong caution in swallowing him without reservation and praising him without consideration. There is no doubting his ableism and that should be acknowledged and pointed out whenever his name is mentioned.

[BarbJerry Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greatest old essays.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

What else can you say about this Book.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that I flip through often. Poetry isn't something one needs to read start to finish, but to read and re-read, parts of all, whenever the mood strikes

[Cleo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top 5

[Jen Burkhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read nothing else in this book, Self-Reliance is a short essay worthy of your time and contemplation.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime and utterly quotable.