Emerson,
Ralph W. Emerson was a profound American Transcendentalist essayist and poet from the 19th century, he was the father and founder of American Transcendentalism. Furthermore he was the more remarkable philosopher of his century, he was more a philosopher than a literary person. Transcendentalism defined "reason" as the highest human faculty, the individual's innate capacity to grasp beauty and truth by allowing full play to the intellect and emotions. The movement emerged from a small group of intellectuals centered in Concord, Massachusetts, and Emerson proved not only its intellectual leader but its most eloquent voice as well. Emerson posed an uncommon freedom of thought product of his childhood conditions, adult experiences and powerful influences. His family was not exceptionally wealthy, but they remained respected in their community. It was this environment of spirituality that formed his morals and fostered his ardent views on anti-slavery and the women's movement. An experience that left him heartbroken was the death of his wife which inspired him to travel abroad. It was during these travels that Emerson met Coleridge and Wordsworth and was first exposed to English Romanticism literary and intellectual influences.
The main theme of "Self-Reliance" is morality which is evident throughout the entire writing. He is assuming that people are like him and want to change. For him the most unmoral thing is to act against your own principles. But in concrete, in these lines of the essay Emerson speaks about the costume of traveling in general and more precise of the costume that had the Americans to travel to Europe to get knowledge. What he says about traveling is that if you do it to learn and expand yourself, then that is good. Hopefully you will see that the truth is universal and expression of the truth should be a moral law. However, traveling for fun is the same as running from the truth and in a sense running from yourself. He protest of the belief of travelling because the journey we should make is an inner journey, not to all around the world. Going far is an artificial way of learning, the knowledge lives next door and it's not necessary to travel far to get it. The ideas that Emerson expose in this essay can be connected with other ones which he expose in his other essays, for example in "The American Scholar" he called upon his countrymen to achieve an intellectual independence from Europe to complement the political independence they had already achieved. He is questioning what the American's scholar role in society would be. The Scholar must be a kind of bookworm who must let his own ideas be shown and then became a leader for others. He can be influenced only by Nature and books to get her own principles and become a man of action without being influenced by society. Self-trust to believe in him and his own ideas. During this time he also began formulating the ideas that would later be born into the essay "Self-Reliance". Th
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Approximate Word count = 1178
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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