Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This edition gathers all the major works of Emerson, whose inspiring, exuberant philosophical voice defined the American grain.
About the Author
Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Mary Oliver is the author of The Leaf and the Cloud, West Wind, and A Poetry Handbook, among others. Over the past two decades she has taught at various colleges and universities—Case Western Reserve, Bucknell, Sweet Briar College, the University of Cincinnati, and Bennington College in Vermont. She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Hobe Sound, Florida.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Mary Oliver
NATURE
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR
AN ADDRESS
THE TRANSCENDENTALIST
THE LORDS SUPPER
ESSAYS: FIRST SERIES
History
Self-Reliance
Compensation
Spiritual Laws
Love
Friendship
Prudence
Heroism
The Over-Soul
Heroism
Intellect
Art
ESSAYS: SECOND SERIES
The Poet
Experience
Character
Manners
Gifts
Nature
Politics
Nominalist and Realist
New England Reformers
PLATO: OR, THE PHILOSOPHER
NAPOLEON: OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD
ENGLISH TRAITS
I.First Visit to England
II.Voyage to England
III.Land
IV.Race
V.Ability
VI.Manners
VII.Truth
VIII.Character
IX.Cockayne
X.Wealth
XI.Aristocracy
XII.Universities
XIII.Religion
XIV.Literature
XV.The “Times”
XVI.Stonehenge
XVII.Personal
XVIII.Result
XIX.Speech at Manchester
CONDUCT OF LIFE
Wealth
Culture
SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE
FARMING
POEMS
Good-bye
The Problem
Uriel
The Rhodora
The Humble-Bee
The Snow-storm
Ode
Forbearance
Forerunners
Give All to Love
Threnody
Concord Hymn
May-Day
The Adirondacs
Brama
Merlins Song
Hymn
Days
Character
Walden
Lines to Ellen
Self-Reliance
Webster
EZRA RIPLEY, D.D.
EMANCIPATION IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW
JOHN BROWN
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
THOREAU
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CARLYLE
Commentary
Reading Group Guide
Reading Group Guide
1. Oliver Wendell Holmes called "The American Scholar" "our intellectual Declaration of Independence." How does Emerson's speech mirror our forefathers' call for personal liberties? What does intellectual liberty entail and what kind of revolution does Emerson promote? What is his call to arms?
2. How is American history-the history that Emerson was living, witnessing, and documenting-reflected in his observations and concerns? How might Emerson be reacting to the expansion of the American West, industrialization and its effect on both the landscape and rural society, and the rising tensions that would give way to the Civil War?
3. In a biography on Emerson, Robert D. Richardson hailed him as "a prophet of individualism," "an autarchist" (a governor of the self) rather than the anarchist many thought him to be. Emerson said that a man can free himself "only by obedience to his own genius." How is Emerson obedient to his own genius? How do his works reflect his individualism, and how does his message and his writing style break with those of many of his contemporaries?
4. "Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe?" Emerson asks in the first paragraph of "Nature." He seems to advocate a new American style in literature rather than the adoption of European style and thought. How would you define the American style that was developing at the time? How has the definition changed in the years that followed?
5. Many of Emerson's essays were delivered as speeches or lectures (most notably, "The American Scholar"). How does this influence our reading of them? Based on his impassioned, instructive, and often inspirational bent, what assumptions can you make about Emerson's audience?
6. Emerson began his career as a minister but later left the church and founded and embraced transcendentalism. To what degree do religion and spirituality inform Emerson's prose, directly and indirectly, and how does Emerson differentiate the two?
7. Mary Oliver, in her Introduction, speaks of Emerson's references to both "Nature" and "nature." How does Emerson make this distinction? How would you? Are the two uses almost interchangeable? To which connotation is Emerson referring when he writes of the "American Scholar," "Therein [nature] resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find-so entire, so boundless."?
8. In his journal, Thoreau writes, "there is no such general critic of men and things . . ." Emerson has often been categorized as a critic as much as he is a writer. How does Emerson critique his age-the literature, religion, politics-and what advice does he proffer?
1. Oliver Wendell Holmes called "The American Scholar" "our intellectual Declaration of Independence." How does Emerson's speech mirror our forefathers' call for personal liberties? What does intellectual liberty entail and what kind of revolution does Emerson promote? What is his call to arms?
2. How is American history-the history that Emerson was living, witnessing, and documenting-reflected in his observations and concerns? How might Emerson be reacting to the expansion of the American West, industrialization and its effect on both the landscape and rural society, and the rising tensions that would give way to the Civil War?
3. In a biography on Emerson, Robert D. Richardson hailed him as "a prophet of individualism," "an autarchist" (a governor of the self) rather than the anarchist many thought him to be. Emerson said that a man can free himself "only by obedience to his own genius." How is Emerson obedient to his own genius? How do his works reflect his individualism, and how does his message and his writing style break with those of many of his contemporaries?
4. "Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe?" Emerson asks in the first paragraph of "Nature." He seems to advocate a new American style in literature rather than the adoption of European style and thought. How would you define the American style that was developing at the time? How has the definition changed in the years that followed?
5. Many of Emerson's essays were delivered as speeches or lectures (most notably, "The American Scholar"). How does this influence our reading of them? Based on his impassioned, instructive, and often inspirational bent, what assumptions can you make about Emerson's audience?
6. Emerson began his career as a minister but later left the church and founded and embraced transcendentalism. To what degree do religion and spirituality inform Emerson's prose, directly and indirectly, and how does Emerson differentiate the two?
7. Mary Oliver, in her Introduction, speaks of Emerson's references to both "Nature" and "nature." How does Emerson make this distinction? How would you? Are the two uses almost interchangeable? To which connotation is Emerson referring when he writes of the "American Scholar," "Therein [nature] resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find-so entire, so boundless."?
8. In his journal, Thoreau writes, "there is no such general critic of men and things . . ." Emerson has often been categorized as a critic as much as he is a writer. How does Emerson critique his age-the literature, religion, politics-and what advice does he proffer?