What do you think?
Rate this book
Understanding Emerson: "The American Scholar" and His Struggle for Self-Reliance
A seminal figure in American literature and philosophy, Ralph Waldo Emerson is considered the apostle of self-reliance, fully alive within his ideas and disarmingly confident about his innermost thoughts. Yet the circumstances around "The American Scholar" oration--his first great public address and the most celebrated talk in American academic history--suggest a different Emerson. In Understanding Emerson , Kenneth Sacks draws on a wealth of contemporary correspondence and diaries, much of it previously unexamined, to reveal a young intellectual struggling to define himself and his principles.
Caught up in the fierce dispute between his Transcendentalist colleagues and Harvard, the secular bastion of Boston Unitarianism and the very institution he was invited to honor with the annual Phi Beta Kappa address, Emerson agonized over compromising his sense of self-reliance while simultaneously desiring to meet the expectations of his friends. Putting aside self-doubts and a resistance to controversy, in the end he produced an oration of extraordinary power and authentic vision that propelled him to greater awareness of social justice, set the standard for the role of the intellectual in America, and continues to point the way toward educational reform. In placing this singular event within its social and philosophical context, Sacks opens a window into America's nineteenth-century intellectual landscape as well as documenting the evolution of Emerson's idealism.
Engagingly written, this book, which includes the complete text of "The American Scholar," allows us to appreciate fully Emerson's brilliant rebuke of the academy and his insistence that the most important truths derive not from books and observation but from intuition within each of us. Rising defiantly before friend and foe, Emerson triumphed over his hesitations, redirecting American thought and pedagogy and creating a personal tale of quiet heroism.
Caught up in the fierce dispute between his Transcendentalist colleagues and Harvard, the secular bastion of Boston Unitarianism and the very institution he was invited to honor with the annual Phi Beta Kappa address, Emerson agonized over compromising his sense of self-reliance while simultaneously desiring to meet the expectations of his friends. Putting aside self-doubts and a resistance to controversy, in the end he produced an oration of extraordinary power and authentic vision that propelled him to greater awareness of social justice, set the standard for the role of the intellectual in America, and continues to point the way toward educational reform. In placing this singular event within its social and philosophical context, Sacks opens a window into America's nineteenth-century intellectual landscape as well as documenting the evolution of Emerson's idealism.
Engagingly written, this book, which includes the complete text of "The American Scholar," allows us to appreciate fully Emerson's brilliant rebuke of the academy and his insistence that the most important truths derive not from books and observation but from intuition within each of us. Rising defiantly before friend and foe, Emerson triumphed over his hesitations, redirecting American thought and pedagogy and creating a personal tale of quiet heroism.
- GenresBiography
216 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2003
26 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 21, 2025
America's Scholar
In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 -- 1882) delivered an oration destined to become one of the prime sources of the American vision at Harvard University before Phi Beta Kappa. In "The American Scholar", Emerson set out a path for American thought that would distinguish it from the thought of Europe. But creating a uniquely "American" scholar was among the least of Emerson's purposes. In his oration, Emerson spoke eloquently for a philosophy of idealism in contrast to the Lockean empiricism prevalent in his day. Emerson celebrated individuality and personal experience rather than conformity to received values and mere book-learning as the source of insight and understanding. He looked to common life and the popular culture as an important source to understanding one's experience. And Emerson taught that scholarly life culminated in action rather than in the cloister.
In 1832, Emerson had resigned his pulpit when he found he could no longer accept certain important Christian doctrines. He became a public lecturer, and, as such, was dependent upon a broad public audience to purchase tickets to his speeches to secure his livelihood. In 1838, shortly after delivering "The American Scholar" lecture, Emerson spoke again at Harvard in an oration again rejecting much of received Christian theology. Following these two lectures, Emerson was not invited to speak again at Harvard for 27 years -- until after the Civil War.
Emerson offered a challenging, provocative vision of the role of the American scholar. It is doubtful whether anyone has achieved or could achieve the ideals he set forth in his oration. In his recent short but detailed book, "Understanding Emerson", Professor Kenneth Sacks analyzes Emerson's celebrated speech in the context of his life to try illuminate the continued appeal of Emerson's address. Sacks is a Professor of History at Brown University who specializes in classical history. He was drawn to study Emerson and American Transcendentalism through his interest in Stoicism and Neoplatonic thought.
Sacks's book is in part a commentary on "The American Scholar" together with Emerson's Divinity School address and his subsequent essay, "Self-Reliance." But "Understanding Emerson" approaches Emerson through placing his oration in the context of his life rather than only through the text of the oration. Sachs is interested in understanding why Emerson delivered this speech when he did and its role in his life.
The Emerson that comes through Sacks's book is a torn, divided figure struggling to be faithful to his own insights on the one hand and to win the approval of the public and of his friends on the other hand. Thus, Sacks presents a figure who wanted to become an individual but who was dependent upon popular approval of his lectures and who was reluctant to give offense on controversial matters. Emerson craved the approval of his friends and fellow-Transcendentalists, but many of Emerson's friends had been disappointed in him at the time of the 1837 lecture for his failure to take strong positions against slavery, among other issues of the day. Emerson craved academic recognition, and, probably, an academic position. But his theological and idealistic views did not win approval among his contemporaries at Harvard.
Sack shows how Emerson struggled with these and similar issues and endeavored to resolve and rise above them in his great 1837 address. Emerson himself tried to live his own ideals and to become the type of scholar that he extolled in "The American Scholar." Sacks tells a human story as well as a prototypical American story of rising to oneself over the needs of earning a living and securing the esteem of others. In the process, Sacks sometimes becomes bogged down in biographical detail, making his book and its important message difficult for readers without a good prior background in Emerson's thought. In emphasizing the value of lived, immediate experience and the need to balance self and personal integrity against the demands of others, Emerson struck important themes that resonate through contemporary American thought and life.
Sacks has written a fine book. Its main virtue is that it will encourage its readers to turn to and read or reread Emerson's "American Scholar" for themselves. The full text of Emerson's address is given in an appendix to the book.
Robin Friedman
In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 -- 1882) delivered an oration destined to become one of the prime sources of the American vision at Harvard University before Phi Beta Kappa. In "The American Scholar", Emerson set out a path for American thought that would distinguish it from the thought of Europe. But creating a uniquely "American" scholar was among the least of Emerson's purposes. In his oration, Emerson spoke eloquently for a philosophy of idealism in contrast to the Lockean empiricism prevalent in his day. Emerson celebrated individuality and personal experience rather than conformity to received values and mere book-learning as the source of insight and understanding. He looked to common life and the popular culture as an important source to understanding one's experience. And Emerson taught that scholarly life culminated in action rather than in the cloister.
In 1832, Emerson had resigned his pulpit when he found he could no longer accept certain important Christian doctrines. He became a public lecturer, and, as such, was dependent upon a broad public audience to purchase tickets to his speeches to secure his livelihood. In 1838, shortly after delivering "The American Scholar" lecture, Emerson spoke again at Harvard in an oration again rejecting much of received Christian theology. Following these two lectures, Emerson was not invited to speak again at Harvard for 27 years -- until after the Civil War.
Emerson offered a challenging, provocative vision of the role of the American scholar. It is doubtful whether anyone has achieved or could achieve the ideals he set forth in his oration. In his recent short but detailed book, "Understanding Emerson", Professor Kenneth Sacks analyzes Emerson's celebrated speech in the context of his life to try illuminate the continued appeal of Emerson's address. Sacks is a Professor of History at Brown University who specializes in classical history. He was drawn to study Emerson and American Transcendentalism through his interest in Stoicism and Neoplatonic thought.
Sacks's book is in part a commentary on "The American Scholar" together with Emerson's Divinity School address and his subsequent essay, "Self-Reliance." But "Understanding Emerson" approaches Emerson through placing his oration in the context of his life rather than only through the text of the oration. Sachs is interested in understanding why Emerson delivered this speech when he did and its role in his life.
The Emerson that comes through Sacks's book is a torn, divided figure struggling to be faithful to his own insights on the one hand and to win the approval of the public and of his friends on the other hand. Thus, Sacks presents a figure who wanted to become an individual but who was dependent upon popular approval of his lectures and who was reluctant to give offense on controversial matters. Emerson craved the approval of his friends and fellow-Transcendentalists, but many of Emerson's friends had been disappointed in him at the time of the 1837 lecture for his failure to take strong positions against slavery, among other issues of the day. Emerson craved academic recognition, and, probably, an academic position. But his theological and idealistic views did not win approval among his contemporaries at Harvard.
Sack shows how Emerson struggled with these and similar issues and endeavored to resolve and rise above them in his great 1837 address. Emerson himself tried to live his own ideals and to become the type of scholar that he extolled in "The American Scholar." Sacks tells a human story as well as a prototypical American story of rising to oneself over the needs of earning a living and securing the esteem of others. In the process, Sacks sometimes becomes bogged down in biographical detail, making his book and its important message difficult for readers without a good prior background in Emerson's thought. In emphasizing the value of lived, immediate experience and the need to balance self and personal integrity against the demands of others, Emerson struck important themes that resonate through contemporary American thought and life.
Sacks has written a fine book. Its main virtue is that it will encourage its readers to turn to and read or reread Emerson's "American Scholar" for themselves. The full text of Emerson's address is given in an appendix to the book.
Robin Friedman
February 19, 2020
Waldo Emerson gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" to an audience of 25 at a Phi Beta Kappa gathering at Harvard. The author spins parts of the speech over the course of the book to encompass Emerson's childhood, his relatives, his friends, peers at Harvard, transendentalism, and individualism among many tangents. It's a stretch to tie in all this to the orgins of a speech Emerson made at the beginning of his career but the author makes a good-faith effort.
December 30, 2021
Read in pieces for research, rather than cover-to-cover. Exactly as informative and context-setting as I'd hoped.
March 12, 2022
Some of this will be useful for my thesis I’m sure
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews