Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

PREFACE. I FEEL that the printing of my lectures brings with it a certain difficulty. Lectures intended to be read within the Museum, with a continual reference, implied and often expressed, to the place, the objects gathered within it and their associations, must have had a certain fifaess which will be more or less diminished when they come to be read under different conditions. Moreover, they were written and spoken with an idea always present in my mind that I had a class of students whom I was addressing, and that my other auditors stood in a more remote relation to me. Certain appeals to my teaching, certain dlusions to the practice of the students and to their position of relative de- pendence and inferiority of age or acquaintance with the world, of little or no significance to my readers, are thus explained. I have not seen any way of so modifying these lectures as to suit my feelings and wishes in the present nor could I have found the time to do so had I seen my way clearly to that end. Even the time that I gave to their prepam tion for the Museum course had to be taken out of the horns of personal teaching and they bear the mark of a more temporary considemtion on my part than would suit me had I from the first thought of publishing them. At the same time, there is always something in work done for a special practical purpose which through its very contexture makes a practical answer to many questions and I have hoped that with some slight modifications and explanations I may manage to make my readers feel that these lectures are for them. I need not add, I think, that there is little in these pages that pretends to be novel. Indeed, I should like to apped to the memories stored in the consciousness of my readers, and ask if their own observation does not bear me out in mine....

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Classics

548 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1867

About the author

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau.

The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.

Reviews

[Jozef Vizdak · Rating 3 out of 5]

The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the raindrops's arc,
The swinging spider's silver line,
The ruby of the drop of wine,
The shining pebble of the pond,
Thou inscribest with a bond,
In thy momentary play,
Would bankrupt nature to repay.

The South-wind brings
Live, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.

[عدنان العبار · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent volume of poetry. To be found in it are gems and fillers. I adored some poems, and pulled myself through others. I am pretty sure I would love them in the proper sitting and mood, but I was not in that. All poems, even the ones that pull and lag have segment that make them worth the read. Some I felt were way way too long and I wish to read them at a later time and perhaps edit my review and explain what the issue was.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

The poem which I read is "Uriel', but I could not find it individually in Goodreads.
I couldn't work out what was going on in this poem. Uriel is an angel or God and overhears some gods scheming and tells on them, maybe!

[Stephen Howard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, pretty disappointing after reading the essays. Generic C19 poems with awkward rhymes.