Ralph Waldo Emerson represents a milestone in American literature and culture, as the pioneer of a new era and new ideas in literature, philosophy, and the study of religions. He is also referred to as the father of modern American literature, who strongly influenced numerous American writers, most notably Walt Whitman, whose arrival he predicted in an unusual way.
He was born in 1803 in Boston, into a family with a long line of Puritan ministers. He lost his father at a very young age, but still managed to be educated at Harvard. He associated with famous writers and philosophers, wrote poetry and essays, kept diaries, and gave lectures in various American states, from the Wild West to the major cities along the East Coast. He advocated against slavery, emphasized the transcendent nature of human beings, and believed in their divine origins.
He published his first book of essays, “Nature,” in 1836. It was the result of many years of study and contemplation on the meaning of human existence, often in solitude, while immersed in nature.
The central idea of the book is that God permeates nature, and therefore divine reality can be understood by studying nature. The book consists of eight essays: On Nature, On Common Goods, On Beauty, On Language, On Discipline, On Idealism, On Spirit, and On Possibilities.
From the diary:
November 1828 – Don’t you see that you are the universe unto yourself? You hold your own destiny in your hands. God finds perfection within Himself, and so should man.
December 21, 1834 – Blessed is the day when a young being discovers that what is within us and what is above us are synonymous.
June 3, 1836 – We continually learn that time and size mean nothing to the soul.
In the eternal nature, centuries are lost like moments. In the vastness of matter, there is no big or small. The grass and leaves that cover the entire globe, and the snow that covers both the North and South Poles like a cap, did not require more effort or intention than opening a single lily. This bell-shaped flower or sprouting of a grain of wheat. For the laws of nature, time means nothing. The ocean is a large drop, a drop is a small ocean.
October 19, 1836 – An individual always dies. What is universal is life. The more truth and goodness enter me, the more I live. The more mistakes and sins I have in me, the more death there is in me.
June 12, 1838 – Do not let circumstances rule over you, but always rule over them and nothing will hurt you.
February 21, 1840 – Art always strives for something better than nature, but a work of art is always less convincing than nature.
Excerpt from the book: Ralph Waldo Emerson: Society and Solitude: Selections from Journals and Essays.
About nature
Nature never has an ominous face. Not even the wisest person can penetrate its secret, but nor can they stop being curious after discovering all its perfection…
A lover of nature is one whose internal and external senses are in complete harmony; one who has retained the childlike innocence. The spirit even when fully mature. His connection with heaven and earth becomes a part of his daily nourishment. In the presence of nature, sincere joy permeates a man, despite all his life’s troubles and sorrows. Nature tells him – you are my creation and despite all your insignificant hardships, find your peace in me…
Beauty is a sign by which God marks virtue. Every natural work is a form of grace. Every heroic deed is a form of nobility which is equally appreciated by the hero’s homeland and casual observers. Great works teach us that the universe belongs to every individual… An artistic work is an abstraction or symbolic summary of the world…
Each individual object is only beautiful if it emphasizes universal grace.
The poet, painter, sculptor, musician, architect, all try to condense the beauty of the world into a single point, and each of them in their works tries to satisfy the love for beauty that inspires them to create… Thus, nature acts through art through the will of a fulfilled man. but the very existence of the world is to fulfill the soul’s longing for beauty…
Nature is the mediator of thoughts, and in three ways:
1. Words are indicators of natural facts.
2. Individual natural facts are symbols of individual spiritual facts.
3. Nature is a symbol of the spirit…
I have already mentioned that every natural process is a version of an ethical lesson. Morality rests at the center of nature and radiates all around. It is the essence of every content, every relationship, and every process. Everything we come into contact with teaches us something…
Especially in this, the uniqueness of Nature is manifested – uniqueness in diversity that we encounter at every step… A leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment in time, they are all connected to the whole and participate in the perfection of the whole. Every particle is a microcosm and each faithfully repeats the similarities of the world…
We learn that the most sublime gift to the human soul is not wisdom, not love, not beauty, not power, but the terrifying universal essence. I see everything together and each for themselves, and that is exactly what everything exists and is realized for, that the spirit creates, that the spirit is present in the background of everything, but also in nature as a whole: that the spirit is unique, not complex, that it does not act on us externally, that is, through time and space, but spiritually or through our selves. Therefore, that spirit, that Supreme Being, does not create nature around us, but lets it permeate us completely, just as life permeates the entire tree, causing new leaves and branches to emerge in the place of fallen leaves and branches…
The reason why the world lacks completeness, and lies in ruins, is because man is divided from himself… The reliable sign of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary.