| 拉爾夫·瓦爾多·愛默生 | |||||
| 拉爾夫·沃爾多·愛默生 | |||||
| 出生地： | 馬薩諸塞州波土頓附近的康考德村 | ||||
| 去世地： | 波士頓 | ||||
閱讀愛默生 Ralph Waldo Emerson在诗海的作品!!! | |||||
拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生愛默生出身牧師家庭，自幼喪父，由母親和姑母撫養他成人。曾就讀於哈佛大學，在校期間，他閱讀了大量英國浪漫主義作傢的作品，豐富了思想，開闊了視野。畢業後曾執教兩年，之後進入哈佛神學院，擔任基督教唯一的神教派牧師，並開始布道。1832年以後，愛默生到歐洲各國遊歷，結識了浪漫主義先驅華滋華斯和柯爾律治，接受了他們的先驗論思想，對他思想體係的形成具有很大影響。
愛默生回到波土頓後，在康考德一帶從事布道。這時他的演說更接近於亞裏士多德學派風格，重要講演稿有《歷史的哲學》、《人類文化》、《目前時代》等。 愛默生經常和他的朋友梭羅、霍桑、阿爾柯、瑪格利特等人舉行小型聚會，探討神學、哲學和社會學問題。這種聚會當時被稱為“超驗主義俱樂部”，愛默生也自然而然地成為超驗主義的領袖。
1840年愛默生任超驗主義刊物《日晷》的主編，進一步宣揚超驗主義思想。後來他把自己的演講匯編成書，這就是著名的《論文集》。《論文集》第一集於1841年發表，包括《論自助》、《論超靈》、《論補償》、《論愛》、《論友誼》等12篇論文。三年後，《論文集》第二集也出版了。這部著作為愛默贏得了巨大的聲譽，他的思想被稱為超驗主義的核心，他本人則被冠以“美國的文藝復興領袖”之美譽。
愛默生的《論文集》贊美了人要信賴自我的主張，這樣的人相信自己是所有人的代表，因為他感知到了普遍的真理。愛默生以一個超驗主義名的口吻，平靜地敘說着他對世界的看法、超驗主義結合併滲透了新柏拉圖主義和類似加爾文教派的一種嚴肅道德觀和那種能在一切自然中發現上帝之愛的浪漫派樂觀主義。
愛默生喜歡演講，面對人群令他興奮不已，他說他感覺到一種偉大的情感在召喚，他的主要聲譽和成就建立於此。他通過自己的論文和演說成為美國超驗主義的領袖，並且成為非正式哲學家中最重要的一個。他的哲學精神表現在對邏輯學、經驗論的卓越見解上，他輕視純理論的探索，信奉自然界，認為它體現了上帝和上帝的法則。
除《論文集》之外，愛默生的作品還行《代表人物》、《英國人的特性》、《詩集》、《五日節及其他詩》。
愛默生集散文作傢、思想傢、詩人於一身，他的詩歌、散文獨具特色，註重思想內容而沒有過分註重詞藻的華麗，行文猶如格言，哲理深入淺出，說服力強，且有典型的“愛默生風格”。有人這樣評價他的文字“愛默生似乎衹寫警句”，他的文字所透出的氣質難以形容：既充滿專製式的不容置疑，又具有開放式的民主精神；既有貴族式的傲慢，更具有平民式的直接；既清晰易懂，又常常夾雜着某種神秘主義......一個人能在一篇文章中塞入那麽多的警句實在是了不起的，那些值得在清晨誦讀的句子為什麽總能夠振奮人心，歲月不是為他蒙上灰塵，而是映襯得他熠熠閃光。
附愛默生一些言論：
關於人在宇宙中的地位，愛默生說：“人不是在自然裏，而是在自身中看到—切都是美好而有價值的。世界非常空虛，它卻從這種虛飾的外觀中得到好處，使靈魂驕傲地得意揚揚。”
愛默生贊美了人的偉大，他說：“每個真正的人都是—個事業、一個國傢和—個時代；他們需要無限的空間、無數的人和無限的時間去完成自己的使命；子孫後代似乎象一排門客，跟隨在他的身後。偉人凱撒，他是為後來時代而生的，我們從他那裏得到了羅馬帝國。基督出生了，成千上萬的人緊緊依附着他的才華成長起來，人們認為他就是美德，就是人存在的原因。制度是一個人的身影的延長。”
愛默生在《自信》一文中對自知與自愛作了較為詳細地論述：“相信你自己的思想，相信你內心深處認為是正確的，對所有的人也是正確的——那就是天才。說你潛在地有罪，是有普通意義的；因為最內心的東西在適合的的候會成為最表面的東西，當末日審判來臨時，我們最初的思想復歸於我們。正如心靈的呼聲屬於每個人，我們認為最高的功績屬於摩西、柏拉圖和彌爾頓，他們蔑視任何書籍和傳統，講的不是人們的想法，而是他們自己的想法。一個人應該學會發現和觀察自己內心深處閃爍的微弱的光亮，而不僅僅是註意詩人和聖賢者輝耀天空的光彩。他也不可忽視自己的思想，因為它是他自己的。在天才的每個作品中，我們都會看到我們自己拋棄了的想法；但當它們回到我們這裏時卻帶上了某種陌生的崇高感。藝術的偉大作品並不會對我們有更多的教益。它們教導我們，當所有喊聲都在另一方時，要心平氣和地、堅定不移地堅持我們自己的看法。而明天一個外鄉客會非常高明地說出恰恰是我們一宜想到和感到的東西，我們會被迫為我們的意見來自他人而感羞赧。”
對於經驗，愛默生認為：“在我看來，沒有神聖的事實，也沒有不神聖的事實。我衹是試驗者，我是個永不停息追索者，在我身後永遠不存在‘過去’”。
關於所有權的問題，愛默生說；“當人人權利都平等的時候，從道德、理智上講，人們在財産方面則是非常不平等的，—個人擁有衣服，另一個擁有一片土地。”
愛默生對法律的看法有一種近乎嘲諷的意味，他說；“法律衹不過是—種備忘錄。我們很迷信，並多少有點尊重法規：它以活着的人的資格所具有的活力就是它的效力。該法規一直在那裏說，昨天我們同意如此這般，但你如今認為這一法規如何呢？我們的法規是印上我們自己的相片的通貨：它很快就變得無法辨認，經過—段時間將返回造幣廠。”
在《書籍》一文中，愛默生為讀者提供了三點可藉鑒的原則：“我必須提供的三條實用準則是：第一，决不閱讀任何寫出來不到一年的書；第二，不是名著不讀；第三，衹讀你喜歡的書。”
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