Representative Men

Emerson is like Henry Adams--very confused most of the time and attempting to confuse his readers to make himself feel more comfortable. The grandiose style makes them look brilliant, unless you are brilliant and notice that it's a bunch of stupidity most of the time.

His essay on Montaigne, the Skeptic, is the classic here and is a welcome addition to any collection of secondary sources on the French essayist. He makes some valid points about Shakespeare, most of his essay about Plato is worthwhile.

That gets him four stars. But I'm subtracting one for his essay on Swedenborg, which is horrible. If I had balls, I'd subtract TWO stars for it. The problem is, if you haven't already read these authors, these essays make no sense; and even show more if you have, they add next to nothing to your knowledge of them. They don't help you make sense of them. They may even help you lose sense of them, if you're dumb enough to value Emerson over the authors themselves.

And who on Earth would put Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Goethe--and Napoleon--together? The categorization itself is the height of stupidity. And they're mostly in chronological order, but then he places Swedenborg before Montaigne rather than between Shakespeare and Napoleon, which makes no sense at all.

Most importantly, why in God's name would he give Swedenborg the longest essay and not any of the others?

Alas, because he is confused by the Swede and is using the press to try and sort his own thoughts out.

Oh, well. show less

Good Card inside "Birthday Greetings Mina" MW stamp

HOMBRES REPRESENTATIVOS

«Hombres representativos» se publicó en 1850. En vida del autor llegaría a reeditarse en tres ocasiones (1857, 1876 y 1879), lo que indica la popularidad de un libro que había tenido su origen en una serie de conferencias pronunciadas durante los cinco años anteriores en Estados Unidos e Inglaterra. Emerson oponía la idea de los " grandes hombres " —Platón, el filósofo; Swedenborg, el místico; Montaigne, el escéptico; Shakespeare, el poeta; Napoleón, el hombre del mundo, y Goethe, el escritor— al " culto de los héroes " de Thomas Carlyle. Harold Bloom ha retomado la contraposición reelaborando el concepto de " Genio " , de clara inspiración romántica, pero los " grandes hombres " , de acuerdo show more con la escritura constitucional emersoniana, eran " representativos " . Tras las dos series de los «Ensayos» (1841-1844) y la publicación con su propio nombre de los escritos de juventud en 1849, «Hombres representativos» se sitúa en un momento crucial de la historia, tras las revoluciones europeas de 1848 —que Emerson presenció en París— y ante la década que terminaría en el acceso a la presidencia de Abraham Lincoln y el estallido de la Guerra de Secesión. show less

Conferencias pronunciadas por Emerson y ensayos