Entry two: Emerson

These 19th century American essayists and philosophers will be the death of me. I miss plot. Characters. Nevertheless, their theories and ideas are quite interesting and my thinking is being stretched in many ways.

January 11, 2012

I think I may have an old soul. Prof said that reading Emerson doesn’t really do anything for him, in a spiritual/mental way. But even though these essays/addresses are from the 19^th century, I have been quite struck by some of the points Emerson makes. Especially about nature and the imagination. Emerson would probably say that I’m not reading creatively enough.

In “Circles,” there was a focus on the fluidity and changeability of life. That nothing is permanent. I was reminded of our class discussion about the change of ideology during Emerson’s time period: the switch from chain of being to evolution, the realization that language is constantly changing and adapting, the changes in the study of geology, etc. I believe that Emerson’s point here is that although permanence does not exist (“permanence is a word of degress”), man still has thought. I think. I was a bit confused by his circle metaphor. Perhaps I will ask about this in class. I particularly liked this line: “Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth in him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can be otherwise” (231).

Emerson believes there is a connection between nature and the poet, yes? The poet should resign to “the divine aura,” which I assume is nature. He should abandon himself to the nature of things and get his inspiration from nature, rather than worldly influences… Boston, New York, coffee, wine, narcotics, etc. I got a little lost when Emerson started discussing poets as the liberators of man. Does he mean that because poets have this connection to nature, they are able to lead others to a similar connection?

I feel like I might be completely wrong about this.

The part about the death of his son was very very interesting. That grief can teach him nothing. That something he imagined as part of himself was been torn away and then he realizes that it was never a part of himself. We can never fully understand another being. Like the circles, we can only touch at one point and move away in the other direction. Souls never touch their objects… the separation between the two beings? The inner and the outer?