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yuèdòuài mò shēng Ralph Waldo Emersonzài诗海dezuòpǐn!!! | |||||
拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生爱默生出身牧师家庭，自幼丧父，由母亲和姑母抚养他成人。曾就读于哈佛大学，在校期间，他阅读了大量英国浪漫主义作家的作品，丰富了思想，开阔了视野。毕业后曾执教两年，之后进入哈佛神学院，担任基督教唯一的神教派牧师，并开始布道。1832年以后，爱默生到欧洲各国游历，结识了浪漫主义先驱华滋华斯和柯尔律治，接受了他们的先验论思想，对他思想体系的形成具有很大影响。
爱默生回到波土顿后，在康考德一带从事布道。这时他的演说更接近于亚里士多德学派风格，重要讲演稿有《历史的哲学》、《人类文化》、《目前时代》等。 爱默生经常和他的朋友梭罗、霍桑、阿尔柯、玛格利特等人举行小型聚会，探讨神学、哲学和社会学问题。这种聚会当时被称为“超验主义俱乐部”，爱默生也自然而然地成为超验主义的领袖。
1840年爱默生任超验主义刊物《日晷》的主编，进一步宣扬超验主义思想。后来他把自己的演讲汇编成书，这就是著名的《论文集》。《论文集》第一集于1841年发表，包括《论自助》、《论超灵》、《论补偿》、《论爱》、《论友谊》等12篇论文。三年后，《论文集》第二集也出版了。这部著作为爱默赢得了巨大的声誉，他的思想被称为超验主义的核心，他本人则被冠以“美国的文艺复兴领袖”之美誉。
爱默生的《论文集》赞美了人要信赖自我的主张，这样的人相信自己是所有人的代表，因为他感知到了普遍的真理。爱默生以一个超验主义名的口吻，平静地叙说着他对世界的看法、超验主义结合并渗透了新柏拉图主义和类似加尔文教派的一种严肃道德观和那种能在一切自然中发现上帝之爱的浪漫派乐观主义。
爱默生喜欢演讲，面对人群令他兴奋不已，他说他感觉到一种伟大的情感在召唤，他的主要声誉和成就建立于此。他通过自己的论文和演说成为美国超验主义的领袖，并且成为非正式哲学家中最重要的一个。他的哲学精神表现在对逻辑学、经验论的卓越见解上，他轻视纯理论的探索，信奉自然界，认为它体现了上帝和上帝的法则。
除《论文集》之外，爱默生的作品还行《代表人物》、《英国人的特性》、《诗集》、《五日节及其他诗》。
爱默生集散文作家、思想家、诗人于一身，他的诗歌、散文独具特色，注重思想内容而没有过分注重词藻的华丽，行文犹如格言，哲理深入浅出，说服力强，且有典型的“爱默生风格”。有人这样评价他的文字“爱默生似乎只写警句”，他的文字所透出的气质难以形容：既充满专制式的不容置疑，又具有开放式的民主精神；既有贵族式的傲慢，更具有平民式的直接；既清晰易懂，又常常夹杂着某种神秘主义......一个人能在一篇文章中塞入那么多的警句实在是了不起的，那些值得在清晨诵读的句子为什么总能够振奋人心，岁月不是为他蒙上灰尘，而是映衬得他熠熠闪光。
附爱默生一些言论：
关于人在宇宙中的地位，爱默生说：“人不是在自然里，而是在自身中看到—切都是美好而有价值的。世界非常空虚，它却从这种虚饰的外观中得到好处，使灵魂骄傲地得意扬扬。”
爱默生赞美了人的伟大，他说：“每个真正的人都是—个事业、一个国家和—个时代；他们需要无限的空间、无数的人和无限的时间去完成自己的使命；子孙后代似乎象一排门客，跟随在他的身后。伟人凯撒，他是为后来时代而生的，我们从他那里得到了罗马帝国。基督出生了，成千上万的人紧紧依附着他的才华成长起来，人们认为他就是美德，就是人存在的原因。制度是一个人的身影的延长。”
爱默生在《自信》一文中对自知与自爱作了较为详细地论述：“相信你自己的思想，相信你内心深处认为是正确的，对所有的人也是正确的——那就是天才。说你潜在地有罪，是有普通意义的；因为最内心的东西在适合的的候会成为最表面的东西，当末日审判来临时，我们最初的思想复归于我们。正如心灵的呼声属于每个人，我们认为最高的功绩属于摩西、柏拉图和弥尔顿，他们蔑视任何书籍和传统，讲的不是人们的想法，而是他们自己的想法。一个人应该学会发现和观察自己内心深处闪烁的微弱的光亮，而不仅仅是注意诗人和圣贤者辉耀天空的光彩。他也不可忽视自己的思想，因为它是他自己的。在天才的每个作品中，我们都会看到我们自己抛弃了的想法；但当它们回到我们这里时却带上了某种陌生的崇高感。艺术的伟大作品并不会对我们有更多的教益。它们教导我们，当所有喊声都在另一方时，要心平气和地、坚定不移地坚持我们自己的看法。而明天一个外乡客会非常高明地说出恰恰是我们一宜想到和感到的东西，我们会被迫为我们的意见来自他人而感羞赧。”
对于经验，爱默生认为：“在我看来，没有神圣的事实，也没有不神圣的事实。我只是试验者，我是个永不停息追索者，在我身后永远不存在‘过去’”。
关于所有权的问题，爱默生说；“当人人权利都平等的时候，从道德、理智上讲，人们在财产方面则是非常不平等的，—个人拥有衣服，另一个拥有一片土地。”
爱默生对法律的看法有一种近乎嘲讽的意味，他说；“法律只不过是—种备忘录。我们很迷信，并多少有点尊重法规：它以活着的人的资格所具有的活力就是它的效力。该法规一直在那里说，昨天我们同意如此这般，但你如今认为这一法规如何呢？我们的法规是印上我们自己的相片的通货：它很快就变得无法辨认，经过—段时间将返回造币厂。”
在《书籍》一文中，爱默生为读者提供了三点可借鉴的原则：“我必须提供的三条实用准则是：第一，决不阅读任何写出来不到一年的书；第二，不是名著不读；第三，只读你喜欢的书。”
Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. As a result of this ground breaking work he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which is considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence." He once said "Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you."
Considered one of the great orators of the time, Emerson's enthusiasm and respect for his audience enraptured crowds. His support for abolitionism late in life created controversy, and at times he was subject to abuse from crowds while speaking on the topic, however this was not always the case. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man."
Biography
Emerson was born in Boston, Mass., son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister, from a well-known line of ministers. Emerson's father, who called his son "a rather dull scholar", died in 1811, less than two weeks short of Emerson's eighth birthday. The young Emerson was subsequently sent to the Boston Latin School in 1812 at the age of nine. In October 1817, at fourteen, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed the Freshman's President, a position which gave him a room free of charge. He waited tables at Commons, a dining hall at Harvard, reducing the cost of his board to one quarter of the full fee, and he received a scholarship. To complement his meager salary, he tutored and taught during the winter vacation at his Uncle Ripley's school in Waltham, Massachusetts.
After Emerson graduated from Harvard in 1821 at the age of eighteen, he assisted his brother in a school for young ladies established in their mother's house, after he had established his own school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts; when his brother went to Göttingen to study divinity, Emerson took charge of the school. Over the next several years, Emerson made his living as a schoolmaster, then went to Harvard Divinity School, and emerged as a Unitarian minister in 1829. A dispute with church officials over the administration of the Communion service, and misgivings about public prayer led to his resignation in 1832.
Emerson met his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire and married her when she was 18. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 20 on February 8, 1831. Emerson was heavily affected by her death, visiting her grave daily and once even opening her coffin to see for himself that she was dead. Despite his marriage, there is evidence pointing to Emerson being bisexual. During early years at Harvard, he found himself 'strangely attracted' to a young freshman named Josh Gay about whom he wrote sexually charged poetry. Gay would be only the first of his infatuations and interests, with Nathaniel Hawthorne numbered among them.
Emerson toured Europe in 1832 and later wrote of his travels in English Traits (1856). During this trip, he met William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Carlyle. Emerson maintained contact with Carlyle until the latter's death in 1881. He also served as Carlyle's agent in the U.S. His travels abroad brought him to England, France (in 1848), Italy, and the Middle East.
In 1835, Emerson bought a house on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike in Concord, Massachusetts, now open to the public as the Ralph Waldo Emerson House, and quickly became one of the leading citizens in the town. He married his second wife Lydia Jackson of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in Concord in 1835. He called her Lydian and she called him Mr. Emerson. Their children were Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward Waldo Emerson. Ellen was named for his first wife, at Lydia's suggestion.
Emerson lived a financially conservative lifestyle. He had inherited some wealth after his wife's death, though he brought a lawsuit against the Tucker family in 1836 to get it. He did, however, pay the rent of his neighbor Bronson Alcott.
Emerson is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts
Literary career
Ralph Waldo EmersonIn September 1836, Emerson and other like-minded intellectuals founded the Transcendental Club, which served as a center for the movement. The group did not publish its journal, The Dial, until July 1840. Emerson anonymously published his first essay, Nature, in September 1836.
In 1838 Emerson was invited into Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School, for the school's graduation address, which came to be known as his Divinity School Address. Emerson discounted Biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great man, he was not God. His comments outraged the establishment and the general Protestant community. For this, he was denounced as an atheist, and a poisoner of young men's minds. Despite the roar of critics, he made no reply, leaving others to put forward a defense. He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years, but by the mid-1880s his position had become standard Unitarian doctrine.
In January of 1842, Emerson lost his first son, Waldo, to scarlet fever. Emerson wrote of his grief in the poem "Threnody", and the essay "Experience". In the same year, William James was born, and Emerson agreed to be his godfather.
In the 1840's Emerson was hospitable to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, and appears to have heavily influenced Hawthorne during these three years.
Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and the rest of the country outside of the South. During several scheduled appearances he was not able to make, Frederick Douglass took his place. Emerson spoke on a wide variety of subjects. Many of his essays grew out of his lectures.
Emerson associated with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau and often took walks with them in Concord. Emerson encouraged Thoreau's talent and early career. The land on which Thoreau built his cabin on Walden Pond belonged to Emerson. While Thoreau was living at Walden, Emerson provided food and hired Thoreau to perform odd jobs. When Thoreau left Walden after two years' time, it was to live at the Emerson house while Emerson was away on a lecture tour. Their close relationship fractured after Emerson gave Thoreau the poor advice to publish his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, without extensive drafts, and directed Thoreau to his own agent who made Thoreau split the price/risk of publishing. The book found few readers, and put Thoreau heavily into debt. Eventually the two would reconcile some of their differences, although Thoreau privately accused Emerson of having drifted from his original philosophy, and Emerson began to view Thoreau as a misanthrope. Emerson's eulogy to Thoreau is largely credited with the latter's negative reputation during the 19th century.
Emerson was noted as being a very abstract and difficult writer who nevertheless drew large crowds for his speeches. The heart of Emerson's writing were his direct observations in his journals, which he started keeping as a teenager at Harvard. The journals were elaborately indexed by Emerson. Emerson went back to his journals, his bank of experiences and ideas, and took out relevant passages, which were joined together in his dense, concentrated lectures. He later revised and polished his lectures for his essays and sermons.
He was considered one of the great orators of the time, a man who could enrapture crowds with his deep voice, his enthusiasm, and his egalitarian respect for his audience. His outspoken, uncompromising support for abolitionism later in life caused protest and jeers from crowds when he spoke on the subject, however this was not always the case. He continued to speak on abolition without concern for his popularity and with increasing radicalism. He attempted, with difficulty, not to join the public arena as a member of any group or movement, and always retained a stringent independence that reflected his individualism. He always insisted that he wanted no followers, but sought to give man back to himself, as a self-reliant individual.
“ Emerson's journals show that he was concerned with the evil of slavery from his youth forward, and he even dreamed that he might somehow deliver slaves from bondage. As a minister, Emerson frequently used slavery as an example of a human injustice. But it was not until 1837 that Emerson was provoked by the murder of an abolitionist publisher, Elijah P. Lovejoy, in Alton, Illinois, into delivering a moderate antislavery address. At this point Emerson still maintained that reform was best achieved by the moral suasion of individuals rather than by the militant action of groups. Over the next seven years Emerson read more deeply into the horrors of slavery, his fears concerning its expansion grew, and he acquired a deep admiration for the abolitionist movement, which he expressed in a moving speech in Concord on August 1, 1844. He stated, 'we are indebted mainly to this movement, and to the continuers of it, for the popular discussion of every point of practical ethics.' Thereafter, he was welcomed by the abolitionists with enthusiasm. ”
In 1845, Emerson's Journal records that he was reading the Bhagavad Gita and Henry Thomas Colebrooke's Essays on the Vedas. Emerson was strongly influenced by the Vedas, and much of his writing has strong shades of nondualism. One of the clearest examples of this can be found in his essay "The Over-soul":
“ We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul. ”
Emerson was strongly influenced by his early reading of the French essayist Montaigne. From those compositions he took the conversational, subjective style and the loss of belief in a personal God. He never read Kant's works, but, instead, relied on Coleridge's interpretation of the German Transcriptal Idealist. This led to Emerson's non-traditional ideas of soul and God.
Emerson's "Collected Essays: First (1841) and Second (1844) Series," including his seminal essays on "History," "Self-Reliance," "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," "Love," "Friendship," "Prudence," "Heroism," "The Over-soul," "Circles," "Intellect," and "Art" in the first and "The Poet," "Experience," "Character," "Manners," "Gifts," "Nature," "Politics," and "Nominalist and Realist" in the second, is often considered to be one of the 100 greatest books of all time.
_Select_ed works
Collections
The Conduct of Life
Essays
"Self-Reliance"
"Compensation"
"The Over-Soul"
"The Poet"
"Experience"
"Nature (book)"
"The American Scholar"
Poems
"Concord Hymn"
"The Rhodora"
Named after Emerson
Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Professorship. In May 2006, 168 years after Emerson delivered his "Divinity School Address," Harvard Divinity School announced the establishment of the Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Professorship. The Emerson Chair is expected to be occupied in the fall of 2007 or soon thereafter.
Emersonian Fraternity (Phi Tau Nu), a local fraternity at Hope College which started as literary society in 1919 following the works of Emerson. The society developed into a fraternity in 1929 and has Emerson as its patron saint.
The Emerson Literary Society at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York.
Emerson Elementary School in Berwyn, IL, USA.
Camp Emerson, a camp based in the Berkshires
Ralph Ellison, the award-winning writer and scholar, was named Ralph Waldo Ellison by his father.
The town of Emerson, Manitoba, Canada.
Mount Emerson, regarded as part of the "Evolution Range" of the High Sierra Nevada near Bishop, California.
Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts.
Emerson Hall (1900) at Harvard University
Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary and Middle School in Detroit, Michigan.
Emerson String Quartet
Ralph Waldo Emerson Middle School in California.
Emerson Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Emerson School, Owosso MI
Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary in Rosemead, California
Ralph Waldo Emerson High School in Gary, Indiana
See also
Classical liberalism
Libertarianism
Contributions to liberal theory
Ralph Waldo Emerson House
Emerson literary society
Unitarianism
New Thought
Unity Church
Religious Science
Divine Science
Further reading
Deming, Richard (2008). Listening on All Sides: Toward an Emersonian Ethics of Reading. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-5738-0.
Strunk, William; et al. (2006). The Classics of Style. The American Academic Press. ISBN 0-9787282-0-3.
Soressi, B. (2004). Ralph Waldo Emerson (in Italian). Armando. ISBN 88-8358-585-2. “with preface by A. Ferrara”
Mariani, G.; et al. (2004). in Mariani, G.; Di Loreto, S.; Martinez, C.; Scannavini, A.; Tattoni, I.;: Emerson at 200 Proceedings of the International Bicentennial Conference (Rome, 16-18 October 2003). Aracne.
Cavell, Stanley (2003). Emerson's Transcendental Etudes. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4543-9.
Geldard, Richard G. (2001). Spiritual Teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Lindisfarne Books. ISBN 0-9402625-9-2. “with introduction by Robert Richardson”
Richardson, Jr., Robert D. (1995). Emerson: The Mind on Fire. University of California Press. ISBN 0-5202068-9-4.
Whicher, Stephen E. (1950). Freedom and Fate. An Inner Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Univ of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122704-5-2.
Thurin, Erik (1981). Emerson As Priest of Pan: A Study in the Metaphysics of Sex. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006021-6-X.
Notes
^ Cheevers, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Large print ed., Detroit: Thorndike Press, p. 76. ISBN 078629521X.
^ Cheevers, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Large print ed., Detroit: Thorndike Press, p. 78. ISBN 078629521X.
^ Cheevers, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Large print ed., Detroit: Thorndike Press, p. 79. ISBN 078629521X.
^ Shand-Tucci, Douglas (2003). The Crimson Letter. New York: St Martens Press, 15-16. ISBN 0-312-19896-5.
^ Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. p. 248. ISBN 0671225421
^ Richardson, Jr., Robert D (1995). Emerson: The Mind on Fire. University of California Press, p. 9. ISBN 0520206894.
^ Kaplan, Justin (1980). Walt Whitman, A Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, p.249. ISBN 0060535113.
^ Cheevers, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Large print ed., Detroit: Thorndike Press, p. 86. ISBN 078629521X.
^ Cheevers, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Large print ed., Detroit: Thorndike Press, p. 82. ISBN 078629521X.
^ Cheevers, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Large print ed., Detroit: Thorndike Press, p. 86. ISBN 078629521X.
^ Cheevers, Susan (2006). American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Large print ed., Detroit: Thorndike Press, p. 93. ISBN 078629521X.
^ Lowance, Mason (2000). Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader. Penguin Classics, p. 301-302. ISBN 0140437584.
^ Sachin N. Pradhan, India in the United States: Contribution of India and Indians in the United States of America, Bethesda, MD: SP Press International, Inc., 1996, p 12.
^ The Over-Soul from Essays: First Series (1841)
^ Harvard Divinity School (May 2006). "Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Professorship Established at Harvard Divinity School". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-02-22.
^ Camp Emerson Official website
^ Department of Philosophy of Harvard University