Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Book Overview

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems, written by legendary author Ralph Waldo Emerson, is widely considered to be one of the greatest classic texts of all time. This great classic... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553213881
• ISBN13: 9780553213881
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: Bantam Classics
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.4" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

At long last: someone worth reading....

I discovered Emerson at age 34, and it was like coming home. I have always been, I guess, a natural "transcendentalist". In other words, I instinctively and intuitively fell into a transcendentalist mindset and way of thinking without ever having read any. So I've read Thoreau and Annie Dillard and frankly can't stand either of them. I find them a little strained. Emerson, to me at least, is a different story. He writes like a god. He writes with authority, poetry and insight. He, to me, is worlds apart from someone like Dillard...hard to say exactly how. I just know that his writing is brilliant, brilliant...free, courageous, honest. A big part of it for me is his passionate and deep understanding of God coupled with his rejection of "corpse-cold" religion. If you are a seeker, if you have an open mind, you will find few better than this.

Selected Essays, Lectures and Poems by Emerson

Emerson affirms the individual and self-reliant aspects of life. Early in life, Emerson lost his father and 3 year old sister Mary Caroline. The author demonstrated the power of expression in translating truth to both verse and music. Some famous quotes from the book are as follows: - The perfect friendship requires a rare nature.. - The fountains of my hidden life are through thy friendship fair. - Man (person ) is all symmetry. - Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. i.e. Plato had no biography per se. A strength of this work is that the author presents classic sayings/quotations of Emerson in the original literary mode. It will be appreciated by literature enthusiasts everywhere.

A wonderful selection of essays!

I've had to read parts of this book for various classes, and read the rest on my own. Whether he's talking about his day, or the future, Emerson is right on the mark for many things, from the need to be self-reliant to society's views on religion. Of course, there are some things I don't agree with, as you'll also find...but there are just so many quotable lines here, which are incredibly thought-provoking and inspirational. If you haven't read this, please do!

excellent retrospective of ages

histories, biographies, criticism, singular people like woodmen are the heroes through the ages; a booh making us stronger.