In September 1835, Emerson and other like-minded intellectuals founded the "Transcendental Club". It was not until July 1840 that Emerson published his work in September 1836 under a pseudonym. His first short essay "Nature". When the work became a fundamental tenet of Transcendentalism, many people immediately assumed that it was an Italian work.
In 1837, Emerson delivered a famous speech titled "American Scholars", declaring that American literature had become independent from British literature, and warned American scholars not to let academic habits spread and not to blindly Follow tradition, don't imitate. In addition, this speech also criticized the money worship in American society and emphasized the value of people. It is known as the "Declaration of Independence" in the field of American thought and culture. A year later, Emerson criticized the lifeless situation of the Unitarian sect of Christianity in "The Seminary Address", tried his best to advocate the supremacy of man, and advocated intuitive understanding of the truth. "Believe in your own thoughts, and believe that what you think deep down in your heart is suitable for you will be suitable for everyone..." Literary critic Lawrence Bull said in "The Biography of Emerson" that Emerson and his doctrines, It is the most important secular religion in the United States.
In 1838, he was invited to return to Harvard University Divinity School to deliver the commencement address. His comments immediately shocked the entire Protestant community because he demonstrated that while Jesus was a man, he was not God (a statement that people at the time would rather not have heard). As a result, he was accused of being an atheist and poisoning the minds of young people, and he offered no response or defense in the face of these criticisms. He was not invited to lecture at Harvard again for the next 40 years, but by the mid-1880s his position became canonical for Unitarian doctrine. In 1840, Emerson served as editor-in-chief of the transcendentalist publication "The Sundial", further promoting transcendentalist ideas. Later he compiled his speeches into a book, which is the famous "Collected Essays". The first volume of "Collected Essays" was published in 1841, including 12 essays including "On Self-Help", "On Supersoul", "On Compensation", "On Love" and "On Friendship". Three years later, the second volume of "Proceedings" was also published. This work won Emerson a great reputation. His thoughts were called the core of transcendentalism, and he himself was dubbed "the leader of the American Renaissance."
In early 1842, Emerson's eldest son Walter died of scarlet fever. Emerson presented his own grief in two of his masterpieces: an elegy and his sketch "Experience." In the same year William James was born, Emerson agreed to be his godfather.
Emerson became a famous speaker in New England and other countries outside the southern United States. When he was unable to attend certain lectures as scheduled, Frederick Douglass would take his place. Emerson lectured on many different topics, and much of his writings were taken from his lectures.
Emerson was friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau, and often walked with them in Concord. Emerson inspired Thoreau's genius. Thoreau also built a house in Walden, Jackson County (Colorado), where Emerson lived. While Thoreau lived in Walden, Emerson provided food and hired Thoreau to do some work. When Thoreau left Walden two years later, Emerson also left to travel and lecture, and Thoreau stayed at Emerson's home. Their friendly relationship broke down after Emerson gave Thoreau poor advice when he published his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The book did not have an extensive design, and Emerson took him to see his agent, leaving Thoreau to bear the cost and risk of publishing the book. The book was not widely read, and Thoreau began to run into debt. Eventually, the two men reconciled some of their differences, but Thoreau privately chastised Emerson for drifting away from his original outlook on life, and Emerson came to view Thoreau as a misanthrope. Emerson gave a negative review of Thoreau's 19th-century eulogy.
Although Emerson was an abstract and profound writer, many people still listened to his speeches. Emerson's works are mainly based on his observations of things in his diary. He had the habit of writing diaries when he was still studying at Harvard University. Those diaries were carefully indexed by Emerson. He wrote down his experiences and thoughts in his diary and brought out some meaningful messages, which were combined with the essence of his dense and condensed lectures. He later revised and polished the speech for inclusion in his essays and other works.
He was regarded as one of the great orators of his time. He mesmerized the audience with his deep voice. He was quite enthusiastic and treated and valued the audience as an equal. His outspoken and uncompromising stance on abolition caused him to arouse opposition and ridicule when he later spoke of the subject. He continued to deliver radical abolition speeches without regard to whether people liked them. He strives not to join any overt political movements or groups and is often eager to be independent, which reflects his individualistic stance. He often insists on not having advocates and being a man who only relies on himself. In his later years, people asked him to count the number of his works, and he still said that his belief was "the infinite individual."
Emerson read the works of the French essayist Montaigne in his early years and was greatly influenced by them. He gained a personal touch from these works and began to reduce his trust in God. He never read Kant, but he did read Coleridge's interpretation of the German Transcendental Idealists. This led Emerson to disbelieve in the soul and God. After Emerson's death, he was buried in Slippy Valley Cemetery in Concord County, Massachusetts. In May 2006, 168 years after Emerson delivered the "Divinity School Address," Harvard Divinity School announced the founding of the UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association).
Many of Emerson's essays included in "Collected Essays: First (1841) and Second (1844) Series" are considered one of the 100 masterpieces.
Emerson's "Essays" praises the idea that people should trust themselves. Such a person believes that he is the representative of all people because he perceives universal truth. Emerson calmly described his view of the world in the tone of a transcendentalist. Transcendentalism combined and penetrated Neoplatonism and a serious moral outlook similar to Calvinism, and the kind of ability to understand everything in nature. The romantic optimism of discovering God’s love in.
Emerson loved to speak, and he was excited to be in front of crowds. He said he felt the call of a great emotion on which his major reputation and achievements were based. He became a leader of American Transcendentalism through his essays and lectures, and became the most important of the informal philosophers. His philosophical spirit is reflected in his outstanding insights into logic and empiricism. He despises purely theoretical exploration and believes in nature, believing that it embodies God and God's laws.
In addition to "Essays", Emerson's works include "Representative Figures", "English Characteristics", "Collected Poems", "May Day and Other Poems". Emerson is a prose writer, thinker, and poet. His poems and prose are unique. He pays attention to the ideological content rather than overly the gorgeousness of the words. His writing is like aphorisms, his philosophy is simple and easy to understand, he is persuasive, and he has a typical "love" Merson style". Someone commented on his writing, "Emerson seems to only write aphorisms." The temperament revealed in his writing is indescribable: it is full of authoritarian unquestionability, but also has an open democratic spirit; it has aristocratic arrogance, More civilian-like directness; both clear and easy to understand, but often mixed with some kind of mysticism... It is really remarkable that one person can stuff so many aphorisms into one article, and they are worth reciting in the morning Why are the sentences always inspiring? Time does not cast dust on him, but makes him shine.
Emerson’s greatest contribution in the history of American culture and literature is that he firmly advocated the establishment of independent national culture and literature. He opposed the habit of attacking the enemy and following in the footsteps of others. He preached the spiritual independence of the New World. Emerson's idea was further developed in his famous "American Philosophers". Emerson asked American thinkers to "know themselves", "observe nature", learn from others' strengths, create a new culture in the New World, write books of their own time, and strive to achieve their own perfection while making contributions to human progress. contribute. He asked American philosophers to be independent thinkers rather than echoers of other people's ideas. He pointed out that books contain the wisdom of the past era, but they cannot follow the past steps or follow the same rules. He asked the scholar to become a universe, not a satellite pulled out of its orbit. Some ideas are creative, some actions are creative, and some words are creative. These all naturally flow out from the goodness and beauty felt by the soul itself. He warned that the genius of the past could become the enemy of today's creative genius, and that Shakespeare could "polish" the original style of modern people. American scholars should look forward, keep their eyes in front of their heads, and write books of their own era with full hope. Every era should write books of its own era.