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1、Lecture 6,Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)-A key figure of transcendentalism,Teaching target and focus:,Emersons contribution to the literary world; Emersons major thoughts and his representative works.Group work,Listen to the tape and answer the questions:,1: What contribution had he made to America
2、n literary history ?2: What was his identity can you guess ?,The United States had won its independence from Britain just twenty-two years before Ralph Waldo Emerson was born. But it had yet to win its cultural independence. It still took its traditions from other countries, mostly from western Euro
3、pe.What the American Revolution did for the nations politics, Emerson did for its culture.,When he began writing and speaking in the eighteen thirties, conservatives saw him as radical - wild and dangerous. But to the young, he spoke words of self-dependence - a new language of freedom. He was the f
4、irst to bring them a truly American spirit.He told America to demand its own laws and churches and works. It is through his own works that we shall look at Ralph Waldo Emerson.,He was responsible for bringing Transcendentalism to New England . He was recognized throughout his life as the leader of t
5、he movement,a major American poet ? Statesman ? Enlightener ? Philosopher ? Transcendentalist ? Lecturer?,Bigraphical introduction: p.161,Life and education: born in Boston, Massachusetts. Most of his ancestors were clergymen as his father. He was educated in Boston and Harvard, like his father, and
6、 graduated in 1821. While at Harvard, he began keeping a journal, which became a source of his later lectures, essays, and books.In 1825 he began to study at the Harvard Divinity School and next year he was licensed to preach by the Middlesex Association of Ministers. In 1829 Emerson married the sev
7、enteen-year-old Ellen Louisa Tucker, who died in 1831 from tuberculosis.,Working and traveling experience:,worked first as an Unitarian priest. In his hometown, Concord, Emerson founded a literary circle called New England Transcendentalism, a hodgepodge mixture of fashionable thoughts, in which par
8、ticipated among others Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Thoreau.,During his travels in England he met Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle, with whom he maintained a lifelong correspondence from the 1830s and whose opinions of the importance of great historical figures influenced his own writings.
9、 After returning to the United States, he lectured on natural history, biology, and history. Later Emerson became involved in the antislavery movement and worked for womens rights.,The change of belief,He became sole pastor in the Second Unitarian Church in 1830. Three years later he had a crisis of
10、 faith, finding that he “was not interested“ in the rite of Communion. He once remarked, that if his teachers had been aware of his true thoughts, they would not have allowed him to become a minister. Eventually Emersons controversial views caused his resignation. However, he never ceased to be both
11、 teacher and preacher, although without the support of any concrete idea of God.,His lectures The American Scholar (1837) and The Divinity School Address (1838) challenged the Harvard intelligentsia and warned about a lifeless Christian tradition. He was ostracized by Harvard for many years, but his
12、 message attracted young disciples such as Henry David Thoreau.,Emersons aim was not merely to charm his readers, but encourage them to cultivate self-trust, to become what they ought to be, and to be open to the intuitive world of experience.,Emerson encouraged American scholars to break free of Eu
13、ropean influences and create a new American culture. He had formulated this idea in the mid-1830s in “American Scholar”, which Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) hailed as “our intellectual Declaration of Independence.“ (P.163.),Scholars obligations for ages:p.163,Action is with the scholar subordinate, bu
14、t it is essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can can ripen into truth. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by as a loss of power. He is the worlds eye. He is the worlds heart.Th
15、ese being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular cry.,Reading Nature :p.164,Para 1: Nature has a restorative, comforting, purifying influence on Men. Para 2: Nature is sublime, respectable, kind, profound and inspiring. Para 3: The definiti
16、on of Nature. Para 4/5: Men always feel delightful and young in Nature. Para 6: The power of delight resides in men or in a harmony of both.,Emersons first book, NATURE, a collection of essays, appeared when he was 33 and summoned up his ideas. Emerson emphasized individualism and rejected traditional authority. He invited us to “enjoy an original relation to the universe,“ and emphasized “the infinitude of the private man.“ All creation is one, he believed - people should try to live a simple life in harmony with nature and with others.,
