Ralph Waldo Emerson

Discussion on Emerson's Creations

Works and Days

April 16, 2022

DAUGHTERS of Time, the hypocritic Days,Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,And marching single in an endless file,Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.To each they offer gifts after his will,Bread, kingdoms, stars and sky that holds them all.I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,Forgot my morning wishes, hastilyTook a few herbs and apples, and the DayTurned and departed silent. I, too late,Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. This passing moment is an edifice Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild OUR nineteenth century is the age of tools. They grew out of our structure. “Man is the meter of all things,” said Aristotle; “the hand is the instrument of instruments,…

Margaret Fuller

April 16, 2022
Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller was a women’s rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was also an American journalist. Her given name was Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli.

Art

April 11, 2022

I FRAMED his tongue to music,I armed his hand with skill, I moulded his face to beautyAnd his heart the throne of Will. ART ALL departments of life at the present day – Trade, Politics, Letters, Science, or Religion – seem to feel, and to labor to express, the identity of their law. They are rays of one sun; they translate each into a new language the sense of the other. They are sublime when seen as emanations of a Necessity contradistinguished from the vulgar Fate by being instant and alive, and dissolving man as well as his works in its flowing beneficence. This influence is conspicuously visible in the…

Society and Solitude

March 18, 2022

SEYD melted the days like cups of pearl,Served high and low, the lord and churl,Loved harebells nodding on a rock,A cabin hung with curling smoke,Ring of axe or hum of wheelOr gleam which use can paint on steel,And huts and tents; nor loved he lessStately lords in palaces,Princely women hard to please,Fenced by form and ceremony,Decked by courtly rites and dressAnd etiquette of gentilesse.But when the mate of the snow and wind,He left each civil scale behind:Him wood-gods fed with honey wildAnd of his memory beguiled.In caves and hollow trees he creptAnd near the wolf and panther slept.He stood before the tumbling mainWith joy too tense for sober brain;He shared…

Books

January 6, 2022

O DAY of days when we can read!The reader and the book, – either without the other is naught.THAT book is good Which puts me in a working mood.Unless to Thought be added Will Apollo is an imbecile.BOOKS IT is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found ; and the best are but records, and not the things recorded ; and certainly there is dilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and do nothing for us. In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates says : ” The ship-master walks in a modest garb near the sea, after bringing his passengers from Aegina or from Pontus; not thinking he has…

Farming

November 19, 2021

To these menThe landscape is an armory of powers,Which, one by one, they know to draw and use.They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work;They prove the virtues of each bed of rock,And, like the chemist mid his loaded jars,Draw from each stratum its adapted useTo drug their crops or weapon their arts withal.They turn the frost upon their chemic heap,They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain,They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime,And on cheap summit-levels of the snowSlide with the sledge to inaccessible woodsO’er meadows bottomless. So, year by year,They fight the elements with elements,And by the order in the field discloseThe order regnant in the…

Civilization

November 19, 2021

We flee away from cities, but we bringThe best of cities with us, these learned classifiers,Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts.We praise the guide, we praise the forest life:But will we sacrifice our dear-bought loreOf books and arts and trained experiment,Or count the Sioux a match for Agassiz ?O no, not we! . . . …. Witness the mute all hailThe joyful traveller gives, when on the vergeOf craggy Indian wilderness he hearsFrom a log cabin stream Beethoven’s notesOn the piano, played with master’s hand.Well done! ‘ he cries; ‘ the bear is kept at bay,The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire:All the fierce enemies, ague,…

A Discussion of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Beliefs and Thoughts on Individuality, Society, and Government

July 2, 2021
A Discussion of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Beliefs and Thoughts on Individuality, Society, and Government

Ralph Waldo Emerson I am writing this essay on the beliefs and thoughts of Ralph Waldo Emerson on the subjects of individuality, society, government, technology, and spirituality. I think that Emerson believes that every person should be as much as individual as they can.

Ellen Louisa Tucker

April 18, 2021
Ellen Louisa Tucker

Ellen Louisa Tucker (1811–1831) was not a public figure or philosopher in her own right but is remembered primarily for her profound influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American transcendentalist philosopher, essayist, and poet. Born in Concord, New Hampshire, Ellen was known for her beauty, vivacity, and profoundly religious nature. Her life was tragically short, but her impact, particularly on Emerson, was significant and enduring. Ellen and Emerson’s relationship began in 1827, culminating in their marriage in 1829 when Ellen was just 18 years old. Their time together was brief, as Ellen suffered from tuberculosis and died less than two years after their marriage, in February 1831, at the age…

Stanley Cavell

April 7, 2021
Stanley Cavell

Stanley Cavell (1926–2018) was an American philosopher renowned for his work in aesthetics, ethics, and the philosophy of language and for his contributions to the interpretation of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Thoreau. Cavell’s academic career was primarily associated with Harvard University, where he taught for over three decades and impacted contemporary American philosophy. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Cavell was raised in Sacramento, California. He pursued an undergraduate degree in music at the University of California, Berkeley, before shifting his focus to philosophy, where he found his true calling. Cavell earned his Ph.D. from Harvard, later joining the faculty, influencing generations of students and scholars through his teaching and writing. Cavell’s philosophical…