Ralph Waldo Emerson

Society and Solitude

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Perhaps no writer has so dramatically shaped the course of American philosophy as Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose meditations on spirituality, freedom, and the power of knowledge have informed and inspired generations of activists, scholars, and thinkers. Published in 1870, Society and Solitude is Emerson's last great work, a collection of lectures he delivered on tour, in which he found profound insight on such seemingly prosaic topics as Art, Eloquence, Domestic Life, Books, Courage, Success, and Old Age. "A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days," says Emerson in his lecture here on "Works and Days." Such penetrating wit and wisdom continues to speak to us today. American poet and philosopher RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882) was a driving force behind the Transcendental Movement of the early 18th century. He studied at Harvard Divinity School; however, after a crisis of faith embraced individualism, rejected authority, and despaired of spiritless Christian conventions. His works include the essay collection Nature, Conduct of Life, and Parnassus, a poetry chapbook as well as Compensation and Self-Reliance from his lecture series.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cosimo Classics
• Seitenzahl: 320
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. September 2005
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 203mm x 127mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 386g
• ISBN-13: 9781596052741
• ISBN-10: 1596052740
• Artikelnr.: 21795794

Autorenporträt

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 - April 27, 1882)[5] was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature". Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence."[6] Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays "Self-Reliance",[7] "The Over-Soul", "Circles", "The Poet", and "Experience." Together with "Nature",[8] these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for mankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." Emerson is one of several figures who "took a more pantheist or pandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world. He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement,[10] and his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers and poets that followed him. "In all my lectures," he wrote, "I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man."[11]Emerson is also well known as a mentor and friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist.