Today, Emerson’s fame chiefly rests on his prolific writing of essays. Now, the essay as literary form is commonplace, but it was still new in Emerson’s time. Emerson emulated the compositional style of Michel de Montaigne, generally understood to have been the inventor of the essay and a master of its uses. Consider writing a research paper on the reasons Emerson was drawn to the essay and why he believed it was an ideal medium for the expression of his philosophic thoughts.
Emerson is often credited with being the father of American transcendental thought. Write a research essay explaining the fundamental tenets of this philosophy. In an address he gave to Harvard University in 1837, now known as “The American Scholar,” Emerson discusses the basic elements of transcendentalism. According to Danny Heitman, writing for “Humanities,” transcendental thought prioritizes intuition over calculating reason, postulates the oneness of nature and divinity, and encourages independent thinking over an adherence to authority. Emerson hoped transcendentalism would grow into a distinctively American school of thought.
Emerson was the son of a preacher and, as a young man, became ordained as a preacher himself. However, his views regarding religion, according to “Smithsonian Magazine’s” Fredrick Turner, were far too unconventional for him to continue down that path. His theological outlook was a complex combination of Protestantism, Hinduism and Pantheism, the belief that God and nature were somehow identical. Explore Emerson’s evolving views on religion, potentially focusing on how he struggled to correct but not contradict American Christianity.
In 1836, Emerson published a controversial essay entitled “Nature.” In it, he argued that a modern scientific account of nature could be reconciled with religious commitment and morality. According to Fredrick Turner, Emerson even anticipated Darwin’s theory of evolution, hypothesizing something not altogether different than the idea of natural selection. Compose an essay analyzing Emerson’s understanding of science and the ways in which he thought his views could be supportive of a genuinely spiritual life.