Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for
you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided
themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was
seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must
accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not
cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing
on Chaos and the Dark.
From Self Reliance
Review
"The Emerson who speaks to us through these essays understood America as few have done before or since.
By nature a dualistic thinker, he fully realized the polarities of American experience--between action and reflection,
self-reliance and community, unity and diversity, idealism and materialism, past and future.... In doing so, he
tried to forge a new identity for the new representative American--serene, self-confident, democratic, progressive
and pluralistic...
He recognized that our faith in the future rested not in any hereditary class or group, but in the infinite
possibilities of the individual--in each person's untapped potential for growth. For Emerson, this belief in the
value of the individual was the source of our strength as a people as well as our confidence in the future."
--St. Petersburg Times, December 25, 1983
Library of America Web Site, May, 2001
Summary
The major works of Emerson's most productive period in their entirety: Nature: Addresses and Lectures, Essays:
First and Second Series, Representative Men, English Traits, and The Conduct of Life.
Table of Contents
Nature; Addresses, and Lectures
Nature
Introduction
Nature
Commodity
Beauty
Language
Discipline
Idealism
Spirit
Prospects
Addresses
The American Scholar. An Oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837
An Address to the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, July 15, 1838
Literary Ethics. An Address to the Literary Societies in Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838
The Method of Nature. An Adress to the Society of the Adelphi, in Waterville College, Maine, August 11, 1841
Lectures
Man the Reformer. A Lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, January, 25, 1841
Introductory Lecture on the Times. Read in the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 2, 1841
The Conservative. A Lecture read in the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 9, 1841.
The Transcendentalist. A Lecture read in the Masonic Temple, Boston, January, 1842
The Young American. A Lecture read to the Mercantile Library Association, in Boston, February 7, 1844.
Essays: First Series
History
Self-Reliance
Compensation
Spiritual Laws
Love
Friendship
Prudence
Heroism
The Over-Soul
Circles
Intellect
Art
Essays: Second Series
The Poet
Experience
Character
Manners
Gifts
Nature
Politics
Nominalist and Realist
New England Reformers, Lecture at Amory Hall
Representative Men
I. Uses of Great Men
II. Plato; or, the Philosopher Plato: New Readings
III. Swedenborg; or, the Mystic
IV. Montaigne; or, the Skeptic
V. Shakespeare; or, the Poet
VI. Napoleon; or, the Man of the World
VII. Goethe; or, the Writer
English Traits
First Visit to England
Voyage to England
Land
Race
Ability
Manners
Truth
Character
Cockayne
Wealth
Aristocracy
Universities
Religion
Literature
The "Times"
Stonehenge
Personal
Result
Speech at Manchester
The Conduct of Life
Fate
Power
Wealth
Culture
Behavior
Worship
Considerations by the Way
Beauty
Illusions
Chronology
Notes on the Texts
Notes
