149 of 153 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential Emerson., July 19, 2001
This review is from: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)
Ever since first reading Emerson in college, I've been looking forward to revisiting his essays. Considering this collection is nearly 850 pages long, one would be on solid ground saying that everything Emerson ever wrote is "essential." His best known essays are included here: "Nature," "The American Scholar," "The Transcendentalist," "The Lord's Supper," "The Poet," and my favorite, "Self Reliance," together with essays on subjects including love (pp. 190-200), friendship (pp. 201-214), prudence (pp. 215-224), experience (pp. 307-326), character (pp. 327-340), nature (pp. 364-377), politics (pp. 378-389), farming (pp. 671-581), Plato (pp. 420-445), Napoleon (pp. 447-466), Abraham Lincoln (pp. 829-833), Carlyle (pp. 837-841), and Emerson's friend and neighbor, Thoreau (pp. 809-825). About Thoreau, Emerson writes, "he was bred to no profession, he never married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely no doubt for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and Nature . . . It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own" (pp. 810; 817-18).
Emerson "opens doors and tells us to look at things for ourselves" (p. xiii) poet, Mary Oliver (THE LEAF AND THE CLOUD), writes in her excellent Introduction to this collection. Like Thoreau, Emerson's writing stays with you for life. "The invariable mark of wisdom," he writes in "Nature," "is to see the miraculous in the common" (p. 38). "It is better to be alone than in bad company," he says in "The Transcendentalist" (p. 90). "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude," he writes in "Self-Reliance" (p. 136). "If we live truly, we shall see truly" (p. 143). In the same essay he says, "We must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching" (p. 145). "We live amid surfaces," he observes in "The Poet," "and the true art of life is to skate well on them" (p. 315).
Whether you're new to Emerson or not, page after page, this recently-published collection of his "essential writings" will appeal to any reader interested in experiencing an original American thinker.
G. Merritt
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219 of 235 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Waters that keep me afloat, December 4, 2003
This review is from: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)
My daughter sent me one of these e-mail questionnaires intended to reveal your personality. One of the questions on it was, "What person, living or dead, would you give $10,000 to spend an hour with?" In that moment, I typed in "Ralph Waldo Emerson". He's not the only one, but I certainly would beg, borrow or steal $10,000 for an hour with him -- not Thoreau, not Whitman, not Schiller... but Emerson I would. And Goethe I would. Still my simple heart lies closer to Emerson than to Goethe.
30 years ago, when I entered high school, we studied the Transcendentalists in a basic lit class, and something about Emerson just glowed in my mind. The teacher told me that with time I'd get to know other authors better, and Emerson would take his place alongside a legion of others. But he was in a degree mistaken. Emerson never did diminish. I have never fallen out of love with him. And the relationship is a serious one. When the shadow of doubt creeps over me that my presence on this planet might be some kind of horrendous mistake, I still crack open a volume of Emerson. And he has never failed to recall me to myself.
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55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Altering pieces of work, October 30, 2003
This review is from: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)
With all the books written about philosophy today, and in the past, this should be perhaps, by far, the most sought after work. Camus and Dostoevsky have contributed much to thought and philosophy of existentialism, but this seems to, in its own way, surpass any labeling of a type of philosophy.
Self-Reliance has to be one of the most understood pieces in the collection. Mr. Emerson speaks in a tone that is easily understood and thoughts explained in plain english, no degree required to understand. And once understood, ideas are easy to apply to our own life to better understand what we have read.
Without a doubt, this book is a must in any thinkers library. Walt Whitman says it best about this book, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil." A genius of a book.
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