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Waldo Emerson
Provides an intimate look at the life and work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, reevaluating his personal relationships with women, philosophers, reformers, and correspondents and eliminating many widely held misconceptions
- GenresBiography
751 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 22, 2023
I was drawn to reading this book after visiting the wonderful hamlet of Concord, Massachusetts this past June. We visited his home, now a historical site, and after returning home, I picked up this book in order to better understand the man.
Emerson graduated from Harvard (where he graduated in the middle of his class) and attended Harvard Divinity School
He became an ordained minister and accepted a position at Boston’s Second Church.
Yet as his ministry developed, he grew further and further away from his church's teachings. He gave sermons that clashed with the church's doctrine, yet continued to speak as he pleased . Finally he could see that he needed to resign his position.
Eventually he stopped attending church for decades, until his very last years. He became a school teacher, and then a very popular traveling lecturer and poet.
Emerson had a very pleasant voice, and impressed people with his alert and kind manner.
Like Robert Oppenheimer, the Bhagavad-Gita was a major influence on him.
Emerson was a philosopher that was into his own thing.
Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine. Critics believed that Emerson was removing the central God figure; as Henry Ware Jr. said, Emerson was in danger of taking away "the Father of the Universe" and leaving "but a company of children in an orphan asylum".Emerson was partly influenced by German philosophy and Biblical criticism. His views, the basis of Transcendentalism, suggested that God does not have to reveal the truth, but that the truth could be intuitively experienced directly from nature. When asked his religious belief, Emerson stated, "I am more of a Quaker than anything else. I believe in the 'still, small voice', and that voice is Christ within us”.
I found in reading this very detailed account of his life, he was very influenced by ancient Greek philosophers, and later even more so by Neoplatonism.
Much of his “original thinking” was distilled from this line.
His life reads like the story of “Forrest Gump”, in the way that his travels had him intersect with so many famous world figures, from strolling beneath the massive California redwoods with John Muir, to being rowed down the Nile by a young boy named Theodore Roosevelt.
After what I felt were the best two chapters in the book, “Quarrel with America”, and “Gathering Storm”, the book winds down with one I call a critical essay of his poems.
If you want to understand Emerson, and only have the time to read one book on his life, then I think that you would do well to make this book that one.
Upon his death, in its obituary of him, The New York Times declared:”Emerson appears to have acted his own definition of a philosophy - he reported to his own mind the constitution of the universe”. I agree with that conclusion.
Emerson graduated from Harvard (where he graduated in the middle of his class) and attended Harvard Divinity School
He became an ordained minister and accepted a position at Boston’s Second Church.
Yet as his ministry developed, he grew further and further away from his church's teachings. He gave sermons that clashed with the church's doctrine, yet continued to speak as he pleased . Finally he could see that he needed to resign his position.
Eventually he stopped attending church for decades, until his very last years. He became a school teacher, and then a very popular traveling lecturer and poet.
Emerson had a very pleasant voice, and impressed people with his alert and kind manner.
Like Robert Oppenheimer, the Bhagavad-Gita was a major influence on him.
Emerson was a philosopher that was into his own thing.
Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine. Critics believed that Emerson was removing the central God figure; as Henry Ware Jr. said, Emerson was in danger of taking away "the Father of the Universe" and leaving "but a company of children in an orphan asylum".Emerson was partly influenced by German philosophy and Biblical criticism. His views, the basis of Transcendentalism, suggested that God does not have to reveal the truth, but that the truth could be intuitively experienced directly from nature. When asked his religious belief, Emerson stated, "I am more of a Quaker than anything else. I believe in the 'still, small voice', and that voice is Christ within us”.
I found in reading this very detailed account of his life, he was very influenced by ancient Greek philosophers, and later even more so by Neoplatonism.
Much of his “original thinking” was distilled from this line.
His life reads like the story of “Forrest Gump”, in the way that his travels had him intersect with so many famous world figures, from strolling beneath the massive California redwoods with John Muir, to being rowed down the Nile by a young boy named Theodore Roosevelt.
After what I felt were the best two chapters in the book, “Quarrel with America”, and “Gathering Storm”, the book winds down with one I call a critical essay of his poems.
If you want to understand Emerson, and only have the time to read one book on his life, then I think that you would do well to make this book that one.
Upon his death, in its obituary of him, The New York Times declared:”Emerson appears to have acted his own definition of a philosophy - he reported to his own mind the constitution of the universe”. I agree with that conclusion.
October 8, 2011
complete and readable
June 24, 2013
Good long biography of Emerson. Very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews