专八人文知识需知的美国名人--拉尔夫.瓦尔多.爱默生

专八人文知识需知的美国名人--伊莱·惠特尼

　　英语专八人文知识涵盖的知识面较广，考生们需要平时多积累小常识，这样在专八考试中才能游刃有余，新东方在线整理了专八人文知识需知的美国名人系列知识点供考生们参考。

　　拉尔夫•瓦尔多•爱默生(Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882)美国散文作家、思想家、诗人。

　　Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was anAmerican philosopher, essayist, and poet, best remembered forleading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19thcentury. His teachings directly influenced the growing NewThought movement of the mid-1800s. He was seen as achampion of individualism and a prescient critic of thecountervailing pressures of society.

　　Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries,formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. As aresult of this ground-breaking work he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, whichOliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence".Considered one of the great orators of the time, Emerson's enthusiasm and respect for hisaudience enraptured crowds. His support for abolitionism late in life created controversy, and attimes he was subject to abuse from crowds while speaking on the topic. When asked to sum uphis work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man."

　　Literary career and Transcendentalism

　　Emerson and other like-minded intellectuals founded the Transcendental Club, which served as acenter for the movement. Its first official meeting was held on September 19, 1836. Emersonanonymously published his first essay, Nature, in September 1836. A year later, on August 31, 1837, Emerson delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, "The American Scholar", thenknown as "An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamedfor a collection of essays in 1849. In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in theUnited States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe.James Russell Lowell, who was a student at Harvard at the time, called it "an event without formerparallel on our literary annals". Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce, called it"an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address".

　　In 1837, Emerson befriended Henry David Thoreau. Though they had likely met as early as 1835,in the fall of 1837, Emerson asked Thoreau, "Do you keep a journal?" The question went on tohave a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau.

　　On July 15, 1838, Emerson was invited to Divinity Hall, Harvard Divinity School for the school'sgraduation address, which came to be known as his "Divinity School Address". Emersondiscounted Biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus was a great man, he was not God:historical Christianity, he said, had turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greekswould describe Osiris or Apollo". His comments outraged the establishment and the generalProtestant community. For this, he was denounced as an atheist, and a poisoner of young men'sminds. Despite the roar of critics, he made no reply, leaving others to put forward a defense. Hewas not invited back to speak at Harvard for another thirty years.

　　The Transcendental group began to publish its flagship journal, The Dial, in July 1840.They plannedthe journal as early as October 1839, but work did not begin until the first week of 1840.GeorgeRipley was its managing editor and Margaret Fuller was its first editor, having been hand-chosen byEmerson after several others had declined the role. Fuller stayed on for about two years andEmerson took over, utilizing the journal to promote talented young writers including ElleryChanning and Thoreau.

　　It was in 1841 that Emerson published Essays, his second book, which included the famous essay, "Self-Reliance". His aunt called it a "strange medley of atheism and false independence", but itgained favorable reviews in London and Paris. This book, and its popular reception, more than anyof Emerson's contributions to date laid the groundwork for his international fame.

　　In January 1842 Emerson's first son Waldo died from scarlet fever. Emerson wrote of his grief inthe poem "Threnody" ("For this losing is true dying"), and the essay "Experience". In the sameyear, William James was born, and Emerson agreed to be his godfather.

　　Bronson Alcott announced his plans in November 1842 to find "a farm of a hundred acres inexcellent condition with good buildings, a good orchard and grounds". Charles Lane purchased a90-acre (360,000 m2) farm in Harvard, Massachusetts, in May 1843 for what would becomeFruitlands, a community based on Utopian ideals inspired in part by Transcendentalism. The farmwould run based on a communal effort, using no animals for labor; its participants would eat nomeat and use no wool or leather. Emerson said he felt "sad at heart" for not engaging in theexperiment himself. Even so, he did not feel Fruitlands would be a success. "Their whole doctrine isspiritual", he wrote, "but they always end with saying, Give us much land and money". Even Alcottadmitted he was not prepared for the difficulty in operating Fruitlands. "None of us were preparedto actualize practically the ideal life of which we dreamed. So we fell apart", he wrote. After itsfailure, Emerson helped buy a farm for Alcott's family in Concord which Alcott named "Hillside".

　　The Dial ceased publication in April 1844; Horace Greeley reported it as an end to the "most originaland thoughtful periodical ever published in this country".

　　Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and much of the rest of the country.From 1847 to 1848, he toured England, Scotland, and Ireland. He also visited Paris between theFebruary Revolution and the bloody June Days. When he arrived, he saw the stumps where treeshad been cut down to form barricades in the February riots. On May 21 he stood on the Champde Mars in the midst of mass celebrations for concord, peace and labor. He wrote in his journal: "Atthe end of the year we shall take account, & see if the Revolution was worth the trees."

　　He had begun lecturing in 1833; by the 1850s he was giving as many as 80 per year. Emersonspoke on a wide variety of subjects and many of his essays grew out of his lectures. He chargedbetween $10 and $50 for each appearance, bringing him about $800 to $1,000 per year. Hisearnings allowed him to expand his property, buying eleven acres of land by Walden Pond and afew more acres in a neighboring pine grove. He wrote that he was "landlord and waterlord of 14acres, more or less".

　　In 1845, Emerson's journals show he was reading the Bhagavad Gita and Henry ThomasColebrooke's Essays on the Vedas. Emerson was strongly influenced by the Vedas, and much ofhis writing has strong shades of nondualism. One of the clearest examples of this can be found inhis essay "The Over-soul":

　　We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole;the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternalONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not onlyself-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and thespectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, themoon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.

　　Emerson was introduced to Indian philosophy when reading the works of French philosopherVictor Cousin.

　　In February 1852 Emerson and James Freeman Clarke and William Henry Channing edited anedition of the works and letters of Margaret Fuller, who had died in 1850. Within a week of herdeath, her New York editor Horace Greeley suggested to Emerson that a biography of Fuller, to becalled Margaret and Her Friends, be prepared quickly "before the interest excited by her saddecease has passed away". Published with the title The Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Fuller'swords were heavily censored or rewritten. The three editors were not concerned about accuracy;they believed public interest in Fuller was temporary and that she would not survive as a historicalfigure. Even so, for a time, it was the best-selling biography of the decade and went throughthirteen editions before the end of the century.

　　Walt Whitman published the innovative poetry collection Leaves of Grass in 1855 and sent a copyto Emerson for his opinion. Emerson responded positively, sending a flattering five-page letter as aresponse. Emerson's approval helped the first edition of Leaves of Grass stir up significant interestand convinced Whitman to issue a second edition shortly thereafter. This edition quoted a phrasefrom Emerson's letter, printed in gold leaf on the cover: "I Greet You at the Beginning of a GreatCareer". Emerson took offense that this letter was made public and later became more critical ofthe work.

　　Legacy

　　As a lecturer and orator, Emerson—nicknamed the Concord Sage—became the leading voice ofintellectual culture in the United States. Herman Melville, who had met Emerson in 1849, originallythought he had "a defect in the region of the heart" and a "self-conceit so intensely intellectual thatat first one hesitates to call it by its right name", though he later admitted Emerson was "a greatman". Theodore Parker, a minister and Transcendentalist, noted Emerson's ability to influence andinspire others: "the brilliant genius of Emerson rose in the winter nights, and hung over Boston,drawing the eyes of ingenuous young people to look up to that great new start, a beauty and amystery, which charmed for the moment, while it gave also perennial inspiration, as it led themforward along new paths, and towards new hopes".

　　In his book The American Religion, Harold Bloom repeatedly refers to Emerson as "The prophet ofthe American Religion," which in the context of the book refers to indigenously American andgnostic-tinged religions such as Mormonism and Christian Science that arose largely in Emerson'slifetime. In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom compares Emerson to Michel de Montaigne: "Theonly equivalent reading experience that I know is to reread endlessly in the notebooks and journalsof Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American version of Montaigne."

　　In May 2006, 168 years after Emerson delivered his "Divinity School Address," Harvard DivinitySchool announced the establishment of the Emerson Unitarian Universalist AssociationProfessorship. Harvard has also named a building, Emerson Hall (1900), after him.

　　Emerson Hill, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Staten Island is named for his eldestbrother, Judge William Emerson, who resided there from 1837 to 1864.

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