Emerson's Essays [Paperback]

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0060909064 | ISBN-13: 978-0060909062 | Publication Date: July 24, 1981

The only collection of the complete First and Second Series of essays by America's most popular sage, available in an affordable paperback edition. A must for students of American culture and literature.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1803. A self-proclaimed "Naturalist," Emerson founded a distinctly American philosophy emphasizing optimism, individuality, and mysticism. In the 1840's, his essays, speeches, and poetry defined him as a central character in the Trancendental movement, and ultimately shaped him into one of the most influential literary figures of the nineteenth century. He died of pneumonia in 1882 in Concord, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (July 24, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060909064
• ISBN-13: 978-0060909062
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #613,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transcendent, January 11, 2007

By 

Patrick J. Maguire - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Emerson's Essays (Paperback)

A great book, lifechanging even. I had read Throueau's Walden right before moving into Emerson and I highly reccomend reading both books, in whatever order you please. I started underlining and highlighting passages I like and by the thrid essay I realized I had no use for my pen anymore as I found even sentance to be a jewel.
A must read for those of all ages and in all walks of life. Emerson will bring universality of the human experince into greater focus, promoting an understanding that regardless of first impressions, people have much more in common than initially percieved.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From self-reliance to the Over-Soul: the "unabridged Quotable Emerson", February 2, 2008

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Emerson's Essays (Paperback)

An amalgamation of two books published in 1841 and 1844, the 21 pieces known as "Essays: First and Second Series" describe Emerson's concepts of self-reliance, the law of compensation (a sort of yin-yang polarity in morality), and the transcendental Over-Soul, an ideal Emerson first enunciated (without naming it as such) in his infamous Divinity School Address, for which he was accused of atheism. "The world is not the product of manifold power, but of one will, of one mind; and that one mind is everywhere active," he said to Harvard's startled divinity students and teachers. "All things proceed out of the same spirit." In these essays, he expands upon this notion of the individual Self as part of a universal All, of the human soul bound by a physical body yet tethered to an omniscient spirit.

Emerson's metaphysics alternates among a quasi-pantheistic belief in the unity of humanity, nature, and God; a monistic view that All is One; a mystical channeling of universal truths; and an anthropocentric faith in the primacy of human experience. Through reflection and meditation, humans can experience God. "Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul," he writes in the essay titled "The Over-Soul." "The simplest person who in his integrity worships God, becomes God."

The form of Emerson's "essays" displays his training as a preacher, and his lectures served as rough drafts; but, although they read like sermons, they are more like prose poems, heavily indebted to Plutarch, Plotinus, and Montaigne. In addition to "Self-Reliance" and "The Over-Soul," the most important of these essays are probably "History," "Compensation," and "The Poet." Anecdotes, evidence, and "scientific" observation play a minor role in his writing, and transitional devices are sparse; his essays are built instead of argument by aphorism, chains of clever and commonsensical quips, and contemplative reflection in a nearly conversational style. (A friend of mine once joked, perceptively, that the Quotable Emerson would be pretty much the same as the unabridged version of the book you have here.)

Emerson's idealism and romanticism can seem hopelessly abstract--a failing that carried over into his personal relations. (Responding to his discussion on "Friendship," Caroline Sturgis wrote to him, "With all your faith in Man, you have but little faith in men.") The ambiguities of his writing and their myriad interpretations have provided the foundations for disparate schools of thought. On the one hand, his philosophic arguments and literary characteristics anticipate Walt Whitman's ode to the self, Nietzsche's "ubermensch," Williams James's "stream-of-consciousness," Dewey's instrumentalism, and Jung's concept of the universal unconscious or racial memory. On the other hand, there is a direct descent from the sermonizing, inspirational quality of Emerson's works to various strands of New Thought spiritualism, the motivational guides of Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie, and the ongoing popularity of books by self-help gurus. (Indeed, one could argue that Emerson's books established the genre in America.)

It is impossible, then, to overstate Emerson's influence on subsequent literature and thought, both highbrow and mass-market. Many (perhaps most) of today's readers might be turned off by the abstract Neo-Platonism of Emerson's work, and his seemingly endless stream of metaphors and maxims can be, at times, somnambulistic. (I personally find his philosophy completely alien to my own worldview.) But even so, Emerson should be read in order to understand both the phenomenon of New England transcendentalism, which may well be the only uniquely American philosophy of the nineteenth century, and the rise of individualism, which donned a uniquely American character during the twentieth.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hollywood Florida Center gives " 5 thumbs up to Emerson", August 8, 2008

By 

Greg Harte "www.hollywoodsom.com" (Hollywood, Fl) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Emerson's Essays (Paperback)

Read one of the greatest minds of his time. It is said that a few from every generation discovers Emerson.

I have been reading and teaching his philosophy for over 20 years. Read it aloud to yourself and allow your self to walk along with one of the greatest spirits we've ever known. I remember reading him in college and not getting it entirely but now I take the time to savor the wisdom on each page. No matter if you are reading in his Essay on Compensation or spiritual laws you will be impressed that he was speaking with equisite intelligence about laws and ideas that the world is only now coming to embrace. ( I hear his words spoken through Louise Hay "You can heal your life" E Tolle, The Secret, Ernest Holmes's Science of Mind and the Filmores of Unity. If you take the time to savor the essay on "History" you will hear a man describe the evolution of conciousness, the awakening of mankind. Sure he wrote during another time and its a little work. Theres so much good here, It is worth ALL the effort. Join a study group and read it aloud.. It is a gift to yourself! Namaste! Rev Greg Hollywood Florida Center for Positive and Spiritual Living