Saturday, September 19, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org
Emersonian
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Texts
CirclesEmerson's 1841 essay on the impossibility of fixity — every circle another can be drawn, every end a beginning, every truth superseded by a bolder one.NatureEmerson's founding essay of American Transcendentalism — a vision of nature as spirit made visible, and of the human soul as its rightful sovereign.Representative MenRalph Waldo Emerson's 1850 book of seven lectures — on Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakspeare, Napoleon and Goethe — arguing that great men serve us as lenses and representatives of tendencies latent in every mind, not as masters to be obeyed.Self-RelianceEmerson's 1841 manifesto of American spiritual independence: trust thyself, reject conformity, and live wholly from within.The Conduct of LifeEmerson's 1860 book of nine essays — Fate, Power, Wealth, Culture, Behavior, Worship, Considerations by the Way, Beauty and Illusions — the late work in which limitation, circumstance and necessity are weighed against the self-trust of his early writing.The Divinity School AddressEmerson's 1838 address to Harvard Divinity graduates: the churches are empty vessels, the soul is its own priest, and a new teacher is coming.The Over-SoulEmerson's 1841 essay on the universal mind that contains all individual souls — the Over-Soul, in which every moment of genuine faith participates.