The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson

by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Brooks Atkinson (Editor)

Includes English Traits, The American Scholar, Poems, Addresses and Other Important Writings. Edited and with a biographical introduction by Brooks Atkinson.

Genres: Philosophy

930 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1940

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

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having a long record of writings has advantages for Emerson. His early writings show a brilliant, yet inconsistent man. But, then again, he wrote at the time, “With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” He was a divinity student then a minister who abandoned Christianity because he concluded that the early Church fathers got it wrong about Jesus’ divinity and then he disparaged the concept of the Trinity. This myopic vanity of a young man showed an ultra-individualist who eschewed society. His then espousal of flagrant passivity could only lead to total anarchy although he believed that, if everyone listened to him, government would simply fade away. That’s why his early transcendentalism was only for those “gifted” souls who prefer pure intuition over reason.
As he matured, Emerson still held onto maddening habits. He obfuscated common experience with his interminable torrent of words. Beneath his trite sayings was still a counterfeit depth, meant to impress the reader but intolerable to the light of reason. He recited knowledge to impress rather than instruct. Many of his pronouncements were based on unwarranted assumptions, wishful thinking or pure whimsy. “Everything in nature is bipolar, or has a positive and a negative pole. Character may be ranked as having its natural place in the north. It shares the magnetic currents of the system. The feeble souls are drawn to the south or negative pole. They never behold a principle until it is lodged in a person.” Did Emerson warp Taoism to support a future superman?
The older Emerson (post 1850’s) would be embarrassed by his earlier pronouncements. His essays on Wealth and Culture show a depth of perception that validated the experience of the common man. And, no longer a loud ego, his declarations evolved into intelligent opinions. His poetry became sublime with age and his retrospectives on the characters he knew or on political events which had gripped the nation are vitally important in today’s era of fluff and cynicism.

[Steve Lim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A seriously heavy tome packed with all that pertains to the great American transcendentalist writer and philosopher. It's a treasure trove, one of my most prized possessions on my bookshelves, something no aspiring writer either side of the Atlantic should be without, whatever genre he or she aspires to write in.

The book represents a thoroughly high standard in the art of writing, something I am scarcely qualified to comment on. I am qualified, however, to adjudge it nothing short of five-star excellence.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of different writings here. Most of them were addresses emerson made to audiences. I honestly wasn't interested in most of them, but some are worth referencing for future-on self-reliance, manners, gifts, nature, conduct of life, emancipation proclamation, Abraham lincoln, to name a few. I did enjoy some of the poetry

"The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough."

[Wesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started out reading Emerson because (by way of Harold Bloom) his purported influence on Wallace Stevens. I read the essays that Bloom in The Poems of Our Climate claims to have influenced Stevens:
"Self-Reliance"
"Circles"
"Experience"

As if 07/15/23 I have just finished the essay "Plato: Or, the Philosopher," as a way of finishing my readings of Plato for now. And now I will embark on the long-term project of reading all of Emerson's essays, now that I have the physical book and not just the PDF.

[Richard Epstein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many claim to have read Emerson's complete essays. Almost all of them lie. Those who did walk with a broken gait, unable to speak in consecutively related thoughts. Several have found careers writing fortune cookies; others, aspiring to gnomic inscrutability, can be found decorating residential lawns.

[Jim Parker]

This is the book when I need to look at the world from a different point of view that I pick up.