广东技术师范学院美国文学课件Unit4 Transcendentalism__ Emerson.pptVIP

Unit 3 American Romanticism and Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson Professor Lu Daofu Ralph Waldo Emerson He was born in in Boston, the son of a Unitarian minister. He attended Harvard, studied theology, and became a Unitarian minister in 1829. He resigned from his post for reasons of conscience in 1832. While in Europe, he met Wordsworth and Coleridge; then he settled down in Concord, and became the leading member of the Transcendental club. Emerson’s Major Works 1836 Nature (“The Bible of Transcendentalism” and “ The Manifesto of American Transcendentalism”) 1837 The American Scholar 1841 Essays “Self-reliance” 1844 Essays: Second Series 1849 Representative Men 1860 The conduct of Life Emerson’s Stylistic Features 1. Epigrammatic in expression of ideas 2. Rich in comparison, especially metaphor. 3. Sometimes incoherent not well organized. Emerson’s Perception of “Self-trust” Trust yourself : to trust one’s self was really to trust the “voice of God” speaking intuitively within us. Emerson’s idea about Individualism “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.” The individual, not the crowd, is the most important of all. Men should and could be self-reliant. Emerson’s Criticism of Consistency The terror that scares people from self-trust is consistency. “With Consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do.” “If you would be a man, speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.” Emerson’s Suggestion of Living Truly and Seeing Truly People tend to live in the past or to try to foresee the future; We must follow nature’s example and live in the present. Speak to God instead of relying on books, live truly, we shall see truly. * * Major Ideas of