Essays, First and Second Series (Masterplots, Definitive Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- First Published: 1841
- Type of Work: Philosophical essays
- Genres: Nonfiction, Essays
- Subjects: Philosophy or philosophers, Nature, Nineteenth century, Religion, New England, God, Government, Democracy, Life, philosophy of, Romanticism, Transcendentalism
Critical Evaluation:
Emerson’s ESSAYS proclaim the self-reliance of a man who believed himself representative of all men since he felt himself intuitively aware of God’s universal truths. He spoke to a nineteenth century that was ready for an emphasis on individualism and responsive to a new optimism that linked God, nature, and man into a magnificent cosmos.
Emerson himself spoke as one who had found in Transcendentalism a positive answer to the static Unitarianism of his day. He had been a Unitarian minister for three years at the Old North Church in Boston...
[The entire page is 1810 words long]
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