The Concord Hymn and Other Poems

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Light wear to cover. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Genres: Poetry

56 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1996

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

[clauie ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75

[Kattiah Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm currently trying to read a bunch of poetry before I go back to uni.

Emerson is not my jam lmao

[Marthese Formosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved quotes by him and I did love this, but this style though amazing can easily loose you. I diffidently think that it's my fault. From his poems it's apparent that he is a cultured man and that he is highly spiritual. He's knowledgeable on nature and ancient Greek, Roman and Indian cultures as well as human emotions and has a deep understanding of our reaction. The footnotes were helpful to provide me with knowledge though throughout the poem I usually found myself lost.

My favourites were Hamatreya,Fable,Etienne de la Boecce and Maia. Though thin, this poetry book took me a while to go through. His rhymes were the best though!

About the Earth:

"They called me theirs,
Who so controlled me;
Yet every one
Wished to stay, and is gone.
How am I theirs,
If they cannot hold me,
But I hold them?"

[Chris Comis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading transcendental poetry is like trying to read Kant . . . backwards: you get a word or two here and there, but overall it just kind of blows by you. There was one poem that brought a mist to my eyes - it was the elegy he did at the funeral of his five year old son.

Overall though, his poems were way too esoteric to be truly enjoyable.