The most comprehensive collection ever assembled gathers every poem Emerson published during his lifetime along with the best of the unpublished verse from his manuscripts, journals, and notebooks to offer readers for the first time the full range of his astonishing poetry. Includes poems hitherto available only in specialized scholarly versions, as well as revealing translations of mystical, sensuous Persian poems and of Dante's "Vita Nuova."
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From Publishers Weekly
Even those not well acquainted with the work of Emerson, New England essayist and procreative spark of the Transcendentalist movement, will find much to savor in this exhaustive, sensitive compilation. The poems chart the growth of a uniquely American sensibility, from the impressionable boy who toyed romantically with verse to the eloquent man who witnessed with "joyful eye" the "genius of the whole." In his autobiographical laments, particularly "Threnody," one sees how painfully the deaths of Emerson's first wife and first-born son affected him. Of great interest also are his gentlemanly versions of Dante. But the crowning moment of the collection comes when Emerson steeps himself in the poetry of Persian mystics. (His translations illustrate more the intense resonance he felt with the rapturous manner of the poet Hafiz, and less his mastery of poetic form.) While the voices of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson and others are periodically visible, the profound influence of the exotic saturates his every word. This welcome collection offers up poetic reiterations of Emerson's more popular essays, lyricizes Transcendentalism's celebration of the sublime in the human, and serves to re-open the case for Emerson as a poet. An introduction would have served readers well.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This claims to be the most comprehensive volume of Emerson's poetry ever published. Bold words, but considering both the publisher's penchant for accuracy and a compilation and textual notes by Harold Bloom and Paul Kane, one could easily believe it. The text includes all of Emerson's published works plus unpublished material gleaned from his journals and notebooks.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The poetry of mind is only sometimes soulful,
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This review is from: Ralph Waldo Emerson : Collected Poems and Translations (Library of America) (Hardcover)
The aphoristic, enigmatic, cryptic, verse of Emerson is collected here in its entirety. Much comes from his notebooks and journals. Emerson was criticized among others by Mathew Arnold for lacking ' the soul' of the poet. And it is true that the music of his verse is often a rough, awkward, intellectual one. And that what is memorable in it comes as a line here or there which could well come from his essays.
Nonetheless there are memorable lines and a few poems which enter the heart and mind, perhaps because once read in childhood anthology they remain as part of one's inner landscape. For me Emerson as a poet is primarily isolated like the most memorable Emerson of all, " By the rude bridge/ that arched the flood/ their flag the April breeze unfurled /Here once the embattled farmers stood and fired' "The shot heard round the world". In another sense Emerson appreciated Poetry and was the patron , and capable of recognizing the great value of , arguably, the ur- American poet, Whitman. Reading the poetry is often a quite complicated intellectual exercise. But it is also one which yields new ideas, though perhaps those ideas are not felt as deeply as poetry should make us feel.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very nicely done,
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This review is from: Ralph Waldo Emerson : Collected Poems and Translations (Library of America) (Hardcover)
This whole series is very nicely done! I purchased the 3 Steinbeck books for myself and the 4 Emerson books for my girlfriend.
The presentation is very nice, the binding, the bookkmark ribbon, the print and paper quality. I'm an iPad/Kindle guy but it's nice to hold a real book of quality once in a while.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
The Sphinx is drowsy, Her wings are furled; Her ear is heavy, She broods on the world. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
most gentle one, most gentle lady, manuscript poems, thy music Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New England, New York, That God New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
The Sphinx is drowsy, Her wings are furled; Her ear is heavy, She broods on the world. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
most gentle one, most gentle lady, manuscript poems, thy music Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New England, New York, That God New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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100
books
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- Vita Nuova (Oxford World's Classics) by Dante Alighieri on 18 pages
- The Conduct Of Life by Ralph Waldo Emerson on 4 pages
- May-Day and Other Pieces by Ralph Waldo Emerson in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Essays, Second Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Essays and Lectures (The Library of America) by Ralph Waldo Emerson in Front Matter, and Back Matter
See all 100 books this book cites
- Fantastic Modernity: Dialectical Readings in Romanticism and Theory by Orrin N. C. Wang on 7 pages
- The Regenerate Lyric: Theology and Innovation in American Poetry (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture) by Elisa New on 5 pages
- Emerson by Lawrence Buell on 5 pages
- American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture) by Russell B. Goodman on 4 pages
- Understanding Emerson: "The American Scholar" and His Struggle for Self-Reliance by Kenneth S. Sacks in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
See all 100 books citing this book
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