Socio-biographical Analysis of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance"
42
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Transcript of Socio-biographical Analysis of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance"
AMERICAN LITERATURE
ABSTRACT
This paper intends to explore Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay
“Self-Reliance” within the guiding framework of relationships
between text and author’s biography and the prevailing social
milieu of 19th century America. Published in 1841, “Self-
Reliance” represents one of Emerson’s profound works that
gained immense attention for its seminal appeal and
reflections on the general nature of human or “individual”
conduct within society. The paper intends to examine how
particular biographical, social and political events may have
influenced particular reflections within the text. Like
Emerson’s first work “Nature” (1836), “Self-Reliance” (1841)
was recognized for its peculiar character as a work of social
commentary, espousing ideals of ‘how men ought to live’ while
deemphasizing the asphyxiating pressures of external
authority. The paper would also attempt a critique of some of
Emerson’s philosophies in a bid to generate a more
comprehensive analysis.
Page | 1
BIOGRAPHY
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May
25, 1803, son of Ruth Haskins and Rev. William Emerson, a
Unitarian Minister (Richardson, 18). He was the second of five
sons who survived into adulthood; the others were William,
Edward, Robert Bulkeley and Charles. Three other children-
Phebe, John Clarke and Mary Caroline- died in childhood
(Baker, 3). Emerson was raised by his mother, with the help of
his aunt, Mary Moody, when his father died from stomach cancer
less than two weeks before Emerson’s eighth birthday. Some
accounts of Emerson’s biography reveal that Aunt Mary Moody
had such a profound influence on Emerson’s intellectual
growth. Mary Moody Emerson was known not only as her nephew
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “earliest and best teacher,” but also as
a “spirited and original genius in her own right”. In one of
his later lectures, Emerson considered her presence in his
life a “blessing which nothing else in education could
supply”.
After studying at Harvard and teaching for a brief time,
Emerson entered the ministry. He was appointed to the Old
Second Church in his native city, but soon became an unwilling
Page | 2
preacher. Unable in conscience to administer the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper after the death of Ellen Louisa Tucker, his
nineteen-year-old wife, of tuberculosis, Emerson resigned his
pastorate in 1831. As he wrote, "This mode of commemorating
Christ is not suitable to me. That is reason enough why I
should abandon it” (Packer, 39). As one Emerson scholar has
pointed out, "Doffing the decent black of the pastor, he was
free to choose the gown of the lecturer and teacher, of the
thinker not confined within the limits of an institution or a
tradition" (Ferguson). Some accounts of Emerson’s life, have
highlighted this moment as a significant moment in Emerson’s
‘coming of age’ and subsequent criticism of institutions that
stifled any form of personal experience and instead branded
any such attempts at “thinking outside the box” as rebellious
and discordant. Writing in his journal in June 1832, Emerson
expressed thus: "I have sometimes thought that, in order to be
a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The
profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the
dead forms of our forefathers.”
Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and later wrote of his travels
in English Traits (1856). During his European trip, he spent
Page | 3
several months in Italy, visiting Rome, Florence and Venice,
among other cities. Moving north to England, Emerson met
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas
Carlyle. Carlyle, the Scottish-born English writer, was famous
for his explosive attacks on hypocrisy and materialism, his
distrust of democracy, and his highly romantic belief in the
power of the individual. Emerson's friendship with Carlyle was
both lasting and significant; the insights of the British
thinker helped Emerson formulate his own philosophy (Packer,
40).
On his return to New England, Emerson became known for
challenging traditional thought. In 1835, he married his
second wife, Lydia Jackson, and settled in Concord,
Massachusetts. Known in the local literary circle as "The Sage
of Concord," Emerson became the chief spokesman for
Transcendentalism, the American philosophic and literary
movement. Centred in New England during the 19th century,
Transcendentalism was a reaction against scientific
rationalism. Emerson’s motto “trust thyself” was viewed as a
statement of non-conformity and a reliance on intuition as the
only way to comprehend reality. Emerson's other volumes
Page | 4
include Poems (1847), Representative Men, The Conduct of Life (1860),
and English Traits (1865). His best-known addresses are The American
Scholar (1837) and The Divinity School Address, which he delivered
before the graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, shocking
Boston's conservative clergymen with his descriptions of the
divinity of man and the humanity of Jesus. Emerson discounted
Biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great
man, he was not God: historical Christianity, he said, had
turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks
would describe Osiris or Apollo". His comments outraged the
establishment and the general Protestant community. For this,
he was denounced as an atheist and‘poisoner’ of young men’s
minds (Buell, 161). His address to a Harvard audience in 1837,
published with the title The American Scholar, has been called
America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence.” Emerson
said, toward the end of his writing career, "I have taught one
doctrine, namely, the infinitude of the private man." Emerson
is believed to be one of the foremost American scholars to
have conceptualised the philosophical movement known as
Transcendentalism, with the support of such key adherents as
Margaret Fuller, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickson and Henry David
Page | 5
Thoreau. He referred to “the splendid labyrinth of one’s own
perceptions”--in the face of society’s pressures on people to
conform in both thought and deed. In the words of Ralph Waldo
Emerson in his 1842 lecture “The Transcendentalist”:
"The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy. He wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to the state of man, without the admission of anything unspiritual; that is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal. Thus, the spiritual measure of inspiration is the depth of the thought, and never, who said it? And so he resists all attempts to palm other rules and measures on the spirit than its own....
Transcendentalism thus evolved as a literary philosophical
movement that had as its ultimate aim, the rejection of all
forms of ‘restrictive’ dogmatism, with an appeal to generating
a form of self-awareness and belief, liberating the human
psyche from conventionalism in order to facilitate full and
genuine expressionism. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
"We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own
hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for
the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired
by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men."
Page | 6
Ralph Waldo Emerson died of pneumonia in 1882.
AMERICA IN THE 19TH CENTURY
A number of key events characterized the social and political
milieu of America in the 19th century. Issues of immigration,
poverty, labour, women struggling for a place in this period
and issues relating to slavery characterized this period of
American life. All American peoples, except for Native
Americans have emigrated from other countries. Most of the
early immigrants came from the British Isles. Immigrants
followed from every European country. Immigrants from Germany,
Ireland, Italy, Scandinavia, and Africa played key roles.
Blacks brought from Africa as slaves were also significant in
this influx. Important immigration also came from China and
Japan. Edgar lee Masters in his book “The living Thoughts of
Ralph Waldo Emerson”, explains that Emerson was engaged in a
fight against the perception of America as a province, a mere
feeding-ground for merchants.
He was against conservatism in religion, politics and business. It was strange that a people fresh from revolution with a broad fertile land and unmeasured opportunities should engraft upon themselves the tyrannies and the superstitions of a Europe that was really defunct. But Emerson found...that there was little
Page | 7
independence of mind in America, and little freedom of discussion. He knew that great writers and thinkers could not exist in America without the freedom of opinion. And for the purposes of his emphaticreaction to repressed conditions it was well enough that he was bornand lived in New England where the theocracy of Puritanism had survived the Revolution and was stronger than ever. (Edgar Lee Masters, pg. 18)
Edgar Lee Masters further explains that New England at the
time that Emerson emerged was much like his own town in
Illinois.
‘Self-repression was a feature of the Puritan religion, and distrust of nature was something enjoined upon the mind and heart. That Emerson freed himself of these restrictions and wrote in the essays and poems the wisdom by which that was done fitted him to publish declarations of intellectual independence for his countrymen. Who else really did this? America, when he came on the scene, was conservative in religion and business and in politics...’(Edgar Lee Masters, pg. 16)
No assessment of America’s developmental history would be
accurate without highlighting the immense contributions this
influx of people of diverse origins had on America’s growth.
Other notable developments within this period include
America’s gradual rise to the status of an industrialized
nation and noteworthy experiments of the democratic machinery
of governance. America in the 19th century evolved from a
largely agricultural to the world's most important industrial
power. Bountiful natural resources, a foundation of English
law, a free enterprise system, an effective public education Page | 8
system, and immigration combined to make America potentially
the most powerful country in the world. Other historians focus
on the negative: the concentration of wealth, child and female
labour, unfair and unsafe working conditions, and other social
problems.
Expressing his disillusion and frustrations with American society, Emerson laments in his diary thus:
“Alas for America, as I must so often say, the ungirt, the diffuse, the profuse, procumbent- one wide ground juniper, out of which no cedar, no oak will rear up a mast to the clouds. It all runs to leaves, to suckers, to tendrils, tomiscellany. The air is loaded with poppy, with imbecility, with dispersion and sloth. Eager, solicitous, rabid, busy-bodied America attempting many things, vain, ambitious to feelthy own existence and convince others of thy talent... catch thy breath and correct thyself, and failing here, prosper out there; speed and fever are never greatness; but reliance and serenity and waiting. America is formless, has no terrible andno beautiful condensation.” (Edgar Lee Masters, pg. 23)
The evolution of a ‘free enterprise system’ or a capitalist
economy, has been identified as evidence or elements that lend
support to the creation of a highly ‘individualistic’ economic
setup, that based on its theoretical assumptions, ensured a
form of equal opportunity to individuals for the creation of
wealth.
Page | 9
Religion, its nature and character, was also an issue of
immense public concern. Puritanism, which reared its head in
the New England territories, was believed to have had
significant telling effects on religious conduct in American
churches and especially on the ideals of society’s moral
constitution. Some perspectives on the nature and character of
Transcendentalism in America, intimate that Transcendentalism,
may in some way be indebted to Puritanism. The logic being
that, both theorised a rejection of some form of convention.
Puritanism, itself a form of dogmatism with its strict moral
codes, emerged as a rejection of some form of administrative
and biblical abuses within the Church.
ANALYSIS OF TEXT
“I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul
Page | 10
always hears an admonition in such lines...to believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,-that is genius...”
Emerson opens his essay with an excerpt from the Epilogue to
Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune; that “man is his own
star” and the condition of an ‘honest and perfect man’ follows
from the soul’s complete control of “all light, all influence,
all fate”. Emerson’s conviction is immediately apparent in the
lines “Ne te quaeseveris extra” which admonishes “not to seek
for answers outside yourself”. Emerson’s philosophy in the
opening lines of this essay, relates or describes the sort of
relationship he would like to see exist between the ‘internal’
(what is innermost; individual) and what is ‘external’
(detached and removed from the self; repressive). Emerson’s
ideological stance in the opening lines of “Self-Reliance” is
an echo or reverberation of ideas he espouses in “Nature”, his
collection of essays published in 1836. Emerson, in the quote
above, does not relate to us the particular verses he read or
from whence it emanated from, because it is obvious his
immediate preoccupations is not an attempt at defining
originality in poetry. Emerson’s concern is to illuminate the
pathway to self-belief by attempting a discussion on
Page | 11
originality to enable the individual recognize the ideal of
being “original” and inventive without submitting to the
pressures of conventionalism or imitation. Emerson says “speak
your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense;
for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost...” He believes
that the eminence of Moses, Plato and Milton follows from
their resolve to ‘set at naught books and traditions’ and
rather reveal what was innermost in their hearts. In “Nature”
Emerson expresses a similar sentiment; he says “Our age is
retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It
writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing
generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through
their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation
to the universe? Why should not we have poetry and philosophy
of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation
to us, and not the history of theirs?...why should we grope
among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation
into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-
day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are
new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works
and laws and worship.” The insistence on the heart rather than
Page | 12
reason was a key ideological movement of the 19th century
Romantics. In this period, ‘reason’ which was emphasized by
the Enlightenment scholars, is rejected for an appeal to ‘the
heart’ (that man should follow the desires of his heart, how
he feels, rather than what the mind imposes). In “Nature”
(1836), Emerson expresses similar sentiments:
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime...
Emerson believes that what is genuine; what is created and
nurtured from within the individual possesses a sort of beauty
or excellence that is transcendent. He believes that there is
an individual ‘essence’ wherein lies the gift of true genius,
for ‘in every work of genius we recognize our own rejected
thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated
majesty.’
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel ofnourishing can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till...A man is relieved and
Page | 13
gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace.
Fundamentally, the entire educational structure is designed to
ensure that individuals do not arrive at the conviction that
‘envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide’. Emerson, through
his educational years in the Boston Latin School and Harvard
Divinity School, partook in an educational system that was
essentially designed to make students assimilate or conform to
some kind of curricula, dogma or convention. Emerson was aware
that conventional education was not really up to this job of
‘lifting the veil’ or providing some assuredness of genuine
self-expression, as it mainly dealt in intellectual
categorisation. ‘External’ education in whichever form,
naturally meant unquestioned conformity to established norms,
beliefs and practices. Emerson believed in a ‘power that
resided in man’ and gave him ‘new nature’ and the initiative
and will to break away from dogma and go chasing after ‘that
divine idea which each of us represents’. His belief here is
that true accomplishment and peace is achieved when man has
put his heart into his work and done his best.
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that ironstring. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great
Page | 14
men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeyingthe Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
In the quote above, Emerson presents us with a seemingly
irresolvable internal contradiction or disjunction within the
text. In one breath, Emerson proclaims “trust thyself”, in
another breath he hopes that we would “accept...the society of
our contemporaries”. A clergyman in his early years, Emerson
had faith- or said he had faith, anyway-in divine providence
and destiny and aligning one’s life with that. Emerson posits
in this section of the essay that “great men” have always had
to ‘align’ themselves to the intellectual expectations of
their society; to confide themselves childlike to the genius
of their age. He claims that only by doing this, would they
escape the fatalism that awaits all non-conformists; of being
viewed as ‘minors and invalids in a protected corner or
cowards fleeing before a revolution.’ Emerson’s ‘great’ tenure
as minister at Boston’s Second Church, endured for as long as
he was willing to conform to the doctrinal dictates of the
church. His ‘greatness’ almost immediately waned or
Page | 15
disappeared the moment he began showing traits of rebellion or
dissension towards the church. The many lectures he presented
in many gatherings gave ample support to this; a lecture was
labelled “great” in so far as it was agreeable to society.
What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and behaviour of children, babes, and even brutes! That dividedand rebel mind...their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it...
Emerson evokes peculiar treasures that lie within that
condition of being “infant” to buttress his convictions about
the perils of conformity. Emerson, in this quote, seems to
reverse (as he does in most parts of this essay) traditional
notions of infancy as a period of weakness and vulnerability
to one of strength. Gazing at infancy with Emersonian lenses,
we see a period rich in its incorruptibility and steadfast in
its distrust of conformity. Infancy does not wish to be a part
of any dogma or philosophy; it seeks genuine self-expression.
Emerson believes that voices we hear in solitude ‘grow faint
and inaudible as we enter the world.’
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater.The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its
Page | 16
aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Emerson posits that “society” is a construct or institution
that avowedly extinguishes any attempts at realising
“manhood”. Manhood crumbles under the sheer weight of
Society’; for society to survive, manhood cannot and should
not be realised. The will or desires of the individual cannot
be placed above the collective interests of the ‘joint-stock’
company. Society’s aversion to self-reliance is representative
of its stifling and repressive character.
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind...No law can be sacred to me but thatof my nature.
Emerson was deeply insecure in many ways and a rather
revolutionary speech about religion that he delivered at the
Harvard Divinity School about this time (asserting the
doctrine of the God within) caused a tremendous uproar and
criticism from people he respected. There would be no job for
him at Harvard! He had left the ministry a few years earlier
and had lost his young wife to tuberculosis after 18 months of
marriage. He didn't really have a career at that point; he
Page | 17
just had the ideas he believed passionately and thought needed
to be heard. He was involved in a very deep career crisis
(which the majority of ‘American’ immigrants could relate to).
There simply was no way to earn a living doing what his heart
told him that he must do--to write and to speak. In the light
of this, Emerson’s insistence on non-conformity and seeking
the ‘integrity of one’s mind’ above all else presents a bit of
a conundrum. The exhortation to ‘believe in yourself’ probably
appealed to the thousands of immigrants who needed the
assurance and a strong conviction of ‘who they were’ within a
foreign land that had become home for most of them; Emerson’s
insistence on believing in oneself is akin to a cultural
declaration of independence, seen in this light.
Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed how easily wecapitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.Emerson, having lived in the worlds of ‘religion’ and
‘academia’, appreciates the customs and traditions that
pertain in both worlds. Both worlds impose constructs of
‘good’ and ‘bad’ upon individuals. But for Emerson, ‘the only
Page | 18
right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is
against it.’ Although Emerson wishes to reiterate his
philosophy of ‘non-conformity’ in these lines, there is a
sense in which this is defective. To adopt one’s own ‘moral
constitution’ and regard ‘everything as titular and ephemeral’
is a bit presumptuous and in fact dangerous to the world.
Morality isn’t merely a matter of what one thinks it is, even
though one would agree with Emerson to some extent that an
individual’s convictions matters greatly in these matters. To
see oneself as the sole determinant of what is right or wrong,
expresses a form of solipsism that has the potential of
providing moral license and justification to any criminal act.
Emerson intimates that ‘the doctrine of hatred must be
preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when
that pules and whines...I shun father and mother and wife and
brother, when my genius calls me.’
Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world, - as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.
Page | 19
Emerson, in these lines, attempts a definition of ‘virtue’; he
suggests that whatever virtue that man shows or expresses is
done as some form of atonement for guilt or sin. He suggests
that ‘virtue’ is an imposition by society on the individual;
‘their works are done as an apology or extenuation of living
in the world’. What is interesting in these lines is Emerson’s
alluding to the Christian act of ‘doing penance’ to further
illustrate his point. The act of penance could be viewed as
voluntary self-punishment as an open expression of repentance
for wrongdoing or a form of religious observance or duty in
which a member of the Church confesses sins to a priest and is
given absolution. Emerson’s allusion to the act of penance and
the parallels he draws between ‘man’s good works’ and this
system of expiation, is representative of the world of
impositions and dogmas, he wishes to wrest himself from.
Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony. What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think that they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our won; but the greatman is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetnessthe independence of solitude.
Page | 20
What Emerson wanted to do--to establish himself a place as a
writer and thinker—was extraordinarily difficult to do outside
of an institution like the church or the university. Being a
member of any of these institutions or any such ‘collective
enterprise’ seemed a fertile ground for the nurturing and
‘indoctrination’ of any of the lofty ideals Emerson preached.
However, Emerson did not desire to be bound or limited by the
constitution of any institution; he did not seek ‘any
secondary testimony’. Emerson’s resolve to extricate himself
from the church and the statutes of the university could be
regarded as his act of abandoning the world and its opinions
in order to enjoy ‘the perfect sweetness the independence of
solitude’ assures.
Again, it is possible to discern some form of aporia in what
Emerson wishes to achieve. He regards institutions like the
church and the university as potentially constrictive and
imprisoning and thus wishes to liberate himself from its
confinement. In doing this however, Emerson seems to propose
another form of imprisonment albeit more self-imposed.
Emerson’s insistence on “trusting thyself” has the potential
of imprisoning oneself within one’s own thoughts and
Page | 21
perceptions. It's also depressing to think that maybe all we
can know is what is within us. In a sense, we may be
imprisoned within our own perceptions and experiences, and can
never really know or be sure if anyone or anything else
exists, because all we can know is what's in our ‘little’
individual heads.
If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument...most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attachedthemselves to some one of these communities of opinion...Their everytruth is not quite true.
In these lines, Emerson seems to be saying ‘tell me someone’s
philosophy, worldview, and I’ll predict his take on reality’.
Like he doffed his priestly apparel, Emerson wishes that
society would shun the life of pretence and imitations that is
bereft of genuine personal expression. He expresses extreme
dislike for members of sects and communities of opinion
because ‘their two is not the real two, their four not the
real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we
know not where to begin to set them right.’ Clad in the
prison-uniforms of the party or sects to which we belong, the
very character and nature of our lives becomes a drama of
Page | 22
compulsions and pretensions in which everyone wears a ‘forced-
smile’.
For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure...but the sour faces of the multitude like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs...it is easy enough for a firm man who knowsthe world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes...but when theunintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is madeto growl and mow, it needs the magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.
Prior to publishing this essay, Emerson had felt or
experienced first-hand the chastisement and extreme loathing
society visited on individuals who chose to rebel against
popular doctrine. He had been ‘whipped’ by the Church and
despised by a considerable number of Boston’s conservative
clergymen after his Divinity School Address. Emerson explains that
what is disheartening about this ‘outrage of multitudes’ is
the manner in which it lacks ‘any deep cause, but are put on
and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs’. Emerson
seems to laments the disparaging position of all non-
conformists in a society where loathe of ‘their kind’ summons
the disgust of even the ‘unintelligent brute force’.
It is pertinent to reiterate the point that Emerson lived in a
‘highly charged moral environment’. There were environmental
Page | 23
shaping factors (moral codes) that sought to mould the
character of 19th century American society. Emerson is
cognisant of this even as he outlines his ideals of non-
conformity.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency agreat soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words,and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day...To be great is to be misunderstood.
As a junior pastor at Boston’s Second Church, Emerson espoused
ideas that would be in antithetical relationship to the ones
he seems to be ‘preaching’ in these lines. Emerson’s objective
is to refuse to be bound by ideas he expressed in the past; he
suggests that man’s ‘reverence’ for a past act or word only
stifles potential. ‘Why drag about this corpse of your
memory’, he asks.
An individual needs to know when it is time to change his/her
direction and outlook. What one says and does at one point
reflects who he/she is at that point in time, and only that.
Tomorrow’s reality could be different, and if that is the
case, an individual should be free to express that new-found
reality. Emerson suggests a paradoxical reality where to
Page | 24
arrive at a near-satisfying understanding of what one means,
you would logically have to misunderstand the person’s past
and present in order to fully appreciate the future. Thus
Emerson’s encouragement, in these lines, is to ‘Leave your
theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot and
free’.
The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformityexplains nothing...Greatness appeals to the future...Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day.
Emerson’s allusion to nature of a ship’s voyage is aptly
demonstrative of the nature of everyman’s life. It’s often
said that life is the sum of all the choices you make. The
purport of this allusion is that, unlike the captain of the
ship who would have some idea or clue about ‘where’ he wants
to reach and ‘how’ he wishes to get there, an individual’s
decisions (from the point where one is actually able to make
his/her own decisions) may not possess that system of
coherence. If there be any hint of coherence in these
decisions, it is only an ‘inner’ one, exempt from the
restrictions of society. The process of ‘zigzagging’ is
Page | 25
necessary to ensure the attainment of a transcendent
‘greatness’ that is no ephemeris. Emerson does not wish to be
judged based on his past thoughts and beliefs as a pastor of a
church; he hopes that his present ‘mental condition’ and
perceptions would be the only yardstick for measuring the
substance and integrity of his actions.
I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being...A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing...We pass for what we are...Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only byovert actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit breath every moment.
Emerson suggests that man’s nature (what he is and probably
what he will become) is inescapable; that ‘no man can violate
his nature’. He says that there exists a ‘law of being’ that
directs man’s will and continually reveals the true nature of
every man. The crux of Emerson’s argument here is that overt
actions (which are mostly performed as an act of penance) do
not reveal man’s true nature. Quite paradoxically, Emerson
seems to be saying that man’s true nature is both immanent
(lies within) and transcendent (existing apart from and not
subject to the limitations of the universe). 19th century
America desired some sort of self-belief. The industrial
Page | 26
Revolution which was already underway in most European
countries (which America would soon join the latter decades of
the 19th century), was ambivalent in its effect on a still-
growing American society. America felt a pressing need (a form
of repression) to partake in this revolution. There was
growing discontent among many Americans about particular forms
of conventionalism from Europe that was beginning to take root
in American society. The flip-side of this seeming repression
was that it provided the needed impetus for Americans to
strive for self-belief and make significant strides in
developing their own ‘unique’ intellectual culture. In the
field of the literary arts and literature in particular, some
American artists like Emerson and Henry David Thoreau desired
a break away from European forms of literary conventionalism.
In the schools and Universities, Emerson felt there was an
urgent need to move from parochial orthodoxies whose anachrony
was inimical to any form of ‘real’ intellectual progress. In
“The American Scholar”, an oration delivered before the Phi
Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts on 31st August
1837, Emerson sets out some very important points; he suggests
that America has listened too long to Europe.
Page | 27
‘Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, byall preparation, to the American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects,eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise...They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career, do not yet see that, if the single man plant himself indomitable on his instincts and there abide, the hugeworld will come round to him.’ (The American Scholar)
For a truly ideal intellectual American society to exist,
Emerson felt there was the need for the ‘single man’ to trust
in himself and ‘plant himself indomitable on his instincts
(what lies within; intutiton) rather than ‘crowd to the
barriers’ (look to Europe) for the attainment of that self-
worth and accomplishment they so desire.
‘We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of granddames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, - painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke... If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weakto be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish.’
The situation of ‘repeating by rote’ is symptomatic of a
system that prevents any form of genuine self-expression. It
breeds a class of ‘robots’ and imitators who lack any real
Page | 28
understanding of their true nature and purpose in life.
Emerson seeks reinforcement, in this essay, of values he had
already expressed in “The American Scholar”. Individuals need
to perceive the essence of their lives from their own lenses,
not from the borrowed lenses of particular societies or sects.
For the budding poet or artist in America, this gave ample
impetus to generate new forms of artistic expression as many
sought to break away from outdated conventions of Europe.
‘Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain... Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal, vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.’
Edgar Lee Masters suggests that ‘what America needed was re-
assurance of the potential and possibility of every man’s
ability to succeed’. The intellectual revolution that Emerson
began did not only appeal to the intelligentsia. Emerson
desired to reach out to every American individual who felt
trapped in the culture of dependency and imitation, to rescue
from the abyss of self-disbelief to the pinnacle of self-trust
and self-satisfaction. Emerson’s philosophy of ‘trusting
Page | 29
thyself’ does not suggest a corruptive form of egotism. It
rather stresses an appreciation of one’s self-worth and a
disregard for all human systems that seek to sustain the
position of man as imitative and ‘soul-less’.
‘But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man,nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men...All men have my blood, and Ihave all men’s. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it... all knock at once at thy closet door, and say, - ‘Come out onto us.’ But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.’
Emerson says that American society does not need ‘to go abroad
to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men’, when it would
be far more enriching and expedient to tap into the ‘internal
ocean’; that latent genius that unlocks all inner treasures
and enables one to ‘keep thy state’ and not walk blindly into
the confusion of others. Emerson explains that even though
‘all men have my blood’, and I, theirs, and may give a
semblance of some interconnectedness, the “separateness” and
uniqueness of every man should not be neglected. As he
explains it is man’s “weak curiosity” (failure to recognize
his own potential) that grants other men the power to “annoy”
(assert control).Page | 30
‘Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them...I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth’s...I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you canlove me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, thatI will do strongly before the moon whatever inly rejoices me...If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions: I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike yourinterest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh today? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.’
A life of ‘keeping up appearances’ is not worth living; it is
too strenuous and burdensome to allow for any meaningful,
profitable, self-enriching endeavour. So Emerson would rather
‘trust that what is deep is holy’ (worth pursuing) and
hypocritical attentions are vexatious to a ‘soul’ that wishes
to live humbly and truly. He claims that society draws out ‘the
sinew and heart of man and we are become timorous, desponding
whimperers’; that society has the potential to promote or
preserve a culture of despondency is enough reason for its
disapprobation.
‘We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to
Page | 31
their practical force, and do lean and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlour soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.’
Emerson believes in rising above the herd; the ‘rugged battle
of fate’ is a metaphor for self-belief and re-birth. Emerson
suggests that the cycle / culture of mendicancy needs to stop;
American society needed to allow for the sort of ambition that
was not disproportionate to an individual’s capabilities or
practical force. The system of ‘choosing for’ and imposing or
adopting ‘foreign’ (not internal/native) tastes was
distasteful and illogical. He explains that ‘it is easy to see
that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the
offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their
education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their
association; in their property; in their speculative views’.
In the concluding section of the essay, Emerson assumes the
status of a doctor and sets out his prescription for a
healthier, self-reliant America.
The first issue he concerns himself with is the act
and nature of prayer. He says that ‘prayer looks abroad and
asks for some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless
Page | 32
mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and
miraculous... but prayer as a means to effect a private end is
meanness and theft’. He explains that the mode of prayer that
desires to ‘cause something to happen’ without man’s physical
exertion (to effect a private end) is meanness and theft.
Prayer that is mendicant (giving to begging) is not rewarding;
ideal form of prayer is ‘the prayer of the farmer kneeling in
his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with
the stroke of his oar, are true prayers...our valors are our
best gods’. Man is already one with God; thus offering prayer
ceases to be act of begging (asking for some foreign virtue),
it becomes an affirmation of that which already is in action;
that which already is.
The second issue Emerson explores is ‘the nature and
purpose of travelling’. On this issue Emerson raises a number
of significant points that were of particular value to the
American society he wrote for and of.
‘It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans...the soul is no traveller, the wise man stays at home..I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows...Travelling is a fool’s paradise.’
Page | 33
Emerson, prior to publishing this essay, had made quite a
number of interesting travels himself. Emerson toured Europe
in 1833 and later wrote of his travels in English Traits (1856)
(Ferguson). He left aboard the brig Jasper on Christmas Day,
1832, sailing first to Malta. During his European trip, he
spent several months in Italy, visiting Rome, Florence and
Venice, among other cities. He went on to Paris, a "loud
modern New York of a place," where he visited the Jardin des
Plantes (Richardson, 138). He was greatly moved by the
organization of plants according to Jussieu’s system of
classification, and the way all such objects were related and
connected. As Richardson says, "Emerson's moment of insight
into the interconnectedness of things in the Jardin des
Plantes was a moment of almost visionary intensity that
pointed him away from theology and toward science"
(Richardson). Moving north to England, Emerson met William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle.
Emerson’s travels around Europe had such a profound influence
on the formulation of his philosophies. Some accounts of
Emerson’s biography actually relate that his acquaintance with
Thomas Carlyle and other such prominent thinkers impacted
Page | 34
greatly on Emerson’s intellect. However, Emerson bemoans the
‘mental condition’ of the American traveller who distrusts
himself so much that he believes the tools for his success in
life are stored up in some foreign land; with the hope of
finding something greater than what he already knows. He says
that the already enriched mind is the only state of mind that
can fully appreciate similar “beauties” that lie in other
lands; otherwise ‘he carries ruins to ruins’.
Furthermore, he suggests that ‘the intellect is vagabond,
and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds
travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home...beauty,
convenience, grandeur of thought, and quaint expression are as
near to us as any, and if the American artist will study with
hope and love the precise thing to be done by him... he will
create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted,
and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.’ For Emerson,
the American artists’ mind need not ‘travel’ (imitate) for the
soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. The
artist needs to disentangle himself from the temptation to
acquiesce to foreign tastes, for it is only in this way that
Page | 35
he can develop his own style (that would also be worthy of
imitation).
‘Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long...they measure their esteem of each other by what each has, andnot by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature...that which a man is does always by necessity acquire, and what man acquires is living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes...It is only as man puts offall foreign support, and stands alone, that I see to him to be strong and to prevail.’
Emerson’s concept of what constitutes ‘property’ is not in the
material sense. Emerson suggests that the only true property
is ‘living property’ (what a man is). ‘What a man is’
according to Emerson, is not subject to the tyrannies of
rulers or mobs or revolutions; is exempt or unharmed by the
destructive habits of fires or storms but ‘perpetually renews
itself’.
These are the final lines of “Self-Reliance”:
‘A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, orthe return of your absent friend, or some other favourable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothingcan bring you peace but the triumph of principles.’
In these lines, Emerson attacks the conventional sense or
tradition of what man considers as the source of happiness; he
Page | 36
suggests that the ultimate source of genuine happiness is
self-generated and not ‘hostage’ to political victories,
recovery of the sick or any such event.
However, Robert Griffin in his critique of Emerson’s essay
poses some very interesting questions:
‘Nothing can bring you peace but yourself? Nothing can bring youpeace except the triumph of principles? What about sunsets? What about great literature? What about your five-year-old daughter jumping into your arms and giving you a hug at the airport when you return from a business trip?
Emerson’s works relate or preach a fundamental doctrine of
self-belief that reverberates through most of his literary
masterpieces and has been considered as crucial in stirring up
a form of intellectual revolt that has helped shape American
society and guarded against particular ills of intellectual
corruption.
REFERENCES
Baker, Carlos (1996). Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait. New
York: Viking Press.
Page | 37
Buell, Lawrence (2003). Emerson. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1983). Essays and Lectures. New York: Library of
America.
Ferguson, Alfred R. “Introduction to the Journals and Miscellaneous
of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume IV”. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Belknap press, 1964
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1994). Collected Poems and Translations. New York:
Library of America.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo (2010). Selected Journals: 1820–1842. New York:
Library of America.
Masters, Edgar L. The Living Thoughts of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York:
Fawcett Publications, 1958.
Packer, Barbara L. (2007). The Transcendentalists. Athens, Georgia: The
University of Georgia Press.
Richardson, Robert D. Jr. (1995). Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Berkeley,
California: University of California Press
Poet John Greenleaf Whittier was said to have thrown his 1855
edition into the fire.[11] Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote, "It is no
discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote 'Leaves of Grass,' only that
he did not burn it afterwards."[27] Critic Rufus Wilmot Griswold
reviewed Leaves of Grass in the November 10, 1855, issue of The Criterion,
calling it "a mass of stupid filth"[28] and categorized its author as
Page | 38
a filthy free lover.[29] Griswold also suggested, in Latin, that
Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among
Christians", one of the earliest public accusations of Whitman's
homosexuality.[30] Griswold's intensely negative review almost caused
the publication of the second edition to be suspended.[31]
Page | 39
