Work · Pragmatism & US Philosophy
Nature
Manifesto of Transcendentalism: I become a transparent eyeball.
Introduction
Emerson’s first book, a long essay of under a hundred pages, appeared anonymously in Boston in September 1836, four years after he had given up his ministry. In eight short chapters it moves from the practical uses of nature through beauty and language to the claim that nature is a symbol of spirit, and that every person can relate to the universe directly instead of through tradition and the church. In the same year Emerson and like-minded friends began meeting in the circle later called the Transcendental Club. The essay is regarded as the founding statement of American Transcendentalism and as a source of American nature writing from Thoreau onwards.
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Connections
Taken up in
- Walden1854 · Henry David Thoreau
More works by Ralph Waldo Emerson
- 1841Self-Reliance
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