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Biography

He started out as an ordinary liberal priest in New England, but in 1832, with the awakening of "faith in the soul", he left his parish. He made a living by lecturing and by 1850 had gained international fame. Married in 1835, he settled in Concord (Massachusetts), although the geography of his lectures already included Canada, California, England and France. From time to time, he rewrote his old lectures, compiling collections from them: Essays (1844), Representatives of Humanity (Representative Men, 1850), Features of English Life (English Traits, 1856), Moral Philosophy (The Conduct of Life, 1860). In 1846 and 1867 books of his poems were published. Some of his poems - "Brahma" (Brahma), "Days" (Days), "Snowstorm" (The Snow-Storm) and "Concord Hymn" (Concord Hymn) - became classics of American literature. Emerson died in Concord on April 27, 1882. His Diaries (Journals, 1909-1914) were published posthumously.

In his first book, "On Nature" (Nature, 1836), in the historical speech "American Scholar" (American Scholar, 1837), in "Address to students of the theological faculty" (Address, 1838), and also in the essay "On trust in himself” (Self-Reliance, 1841), he spoke to the young dissidents of his time as if on their behalf. “We begin to live,” he taught, “only when we begin to trust our inner strength, the “I” of our “I”, as the only and sufficient remedy against all the horrors of “not I”. What is called human nature is only an outer shell, a scab of habit, plunging the innate forces of man into an unnatural sleep.

The history of Emerson's thought is a rebellion against the world of mechanical necessity created in the 18th century, an assertion of the sovereignty of the self. Over time, Emerson absorbed the new idea of natural evolution, which came to him from sources "before Darwin", and began to relate with growing understanding to Eastern philosophy.

Emerson's influence on the development of American thought and literature cannot be overestimated. The liberals of his generation recognized him as their spiritual leader. He influenced W. Whitman and G. Thoreau, N. Hawthorne and G. Melville. Subsequently, Emily Dickinson, E. A. Robinson and R. Frost experienced his influence; the most "American" of all philosophies, pragmatism, shows a clear closeness to his views; Emerson's ideas inspired the "modernist" direction of Protestant thought. Emerson won the sympathy of readers in Germany, having a profound influence on F. Nietzsche. In France and Belgium, Emerson was not so popular, although M. Maeterlinck, A. Bergson and C. Baudelaire were interested in him.

Biography

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(05/25/1803 [Boston] - 04/27/1882 [Concord])
USA

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803–1882), American writer and philosopher. Born May 25, 1803 in Boston (pc. Massachusetts). He started out as a typical liberal New England priest, but in 1832, with the awakening of "faith in the soul", he left his parish. He made a living by lecturing and by 1850 had gained international fame. Married in 1835, he settled in Concord (Massachusetts), although the geography of his lectures already included Canada, California, England and France. From time to time, he rewrote his old lectures, compiling collections from them: Essays (1844), Representatives of Humanity (Representative Men, 1850), Features of English Life (English Traits, 1856), Moral Philosophy (The Conduct of Life, 1860). In 1846 and 1867 books of his poems were published. Some of his poems - Brahma (Brahma), Days (Days), Snowstorm (The Snow-Storm) and the Concord Hymn (Concord Hymn) - have become classics of American literature. Emerson died in Concord April 27, 1882. Posthumously published his Diaries (Journals, 1909-1914).

In his first book On Nature (Nature, 1836), in the historical speech American Scholar (American Scholar, 1837), in an Address to students of theological faculty (Address, 1838), and also in an essay on self-confidence (Self-Reliance, 1841 ) he spoke to the young dissidents of his time as if on their behalf. We begin to live, he taught, only when we begin to trust our inner strength, the “I” of our “I”, as the only and sufficient remedy against all the horrors of “not I”. What is called human nature is only an outer shell, a scab of habit, plunging the innate forces of man into an unnatural sleep.

The history of Emerson's thought is a revolt against the 18th-century the world of mechanical necessity, the assertion of the sovereignty of the "I". Over time, Emerson absorbed the new idea of natural evolution, which came to him from sources "before Darwin", and began to relate with growing understanding to Eastern philosophy.

Emerson's influence on the development of American thought and literature cannot be overestimated. The liberals of his generation recognized him as their spiritual leader. He influenced W. Whitman and G. Thoreau, N. Hawthorne and G. Melville. Subsequently, Emily Dickenson, E.A. Robinson and R. Frost experienced his influence; the most "American" of all philosophies, pragmatism, shows a clear closeness to his views; Emerson's ideas inspired the "modernist" direction of Protestant thought. Emerson won the sympathy of readers in Germany, having had a profound influence on F. Nietzsche. In France and Belgium, Emerson was not so popular, although M. Maeterlinck, A. Bergson and C. Baudelaire were interested in him.

Ralph Waldo Emerson. May 25, 1803, Boston, USA - April 27, 1882, Concord, USA American essayist, poet, philosopher, pastor, social activist; one of the most prominent thinkers and writers of the United States. In his essay "Nature" ("Nature", 1836), he was the first to express and formulate the philosophy of transcendentalism.

His father was a Unitarian pastor, after whose death the family suffered for a long time.

In 1821, Waldo graduated from Harvard, where he received a theological education. After graduating from university, he took holy orders and became a preacher in the Boston Unitarian Church.

During the conflict that arose, he was forced to leave his parish, continuing to preach as a visiting pastor until 1838 in various parishes of Massachusetts.

During his preaching work, the Venerable Emerson wrote about 190 sermons. He made a living by lecturing and by 1850 had become known outside the United States.

Married in 1835 for the second time, he settled in Concord (Massachusetts), although the geography of his lectures already included Canada, California, England and France.

In 1846 and 1867 books of his poems were published.

Some of his poems - "Brahma" (Brahma), "Days" (Days), "Snowstorm" (The Snow-Storm) and "Concord Hymn" (Concord Hymn) - became classics of American literature. He died in Concord April 27, 1882. Posthumously published his Diaries (Journals, 1909-1914).

The text of the essay "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson became the manifesto of the religious-philosophical movement transcendentalism.

In his first book, On Nature (Nature, 1836), in the historical speech "The American Scholar" (American Scholar, 1837), in "Address to Divinity Students" (Address, 1838), and in the essay "Self-Confidence (Self-Reliance, 1841) he spoke to the young dissidents of his time as if on their behalf. “We begin to live,” he taught, “only when we begin to trust our inner strength, the “I” of our “I”, as the only and sufficient remedy against all the horrors of “not I”. What is called human nature is only an outer shell, a scab of habit, plunging the innate forces of man into an unnatural sleep.

The history of Emerson's thought is a rebellion against the world of mechanical necessity created in the 18th century, an assertion of the sovereignty of the self. Over time, he adopted the new idea of natural evolution, which came to him from sources "before Darwin", and began to treat Eastern philosophy with a growing understanding.

His influence on the development of American thought and literature cannot be overestimated. The liberals of his generation recognized him as their spiritual leader. He had a very great influence on G. Thoreau, G. Melville and W. Whitman. Subsequently, Emily Dickinson, E. A. Robinson and R. Frost experienced his influence; the most "American" of all philosophies, pragmatism, shows a clear closeness to his views; his ideas inspired the "modernist" direction of Protestant thought. However, there were also opponents of transcendentalism in America, among them such prominent writers as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Poe, while Hawthorne himself said that Emerson's face was like a sunbeam.

Ralph Emerson won the sympathy of readers in Germany, influencing . In France and Belgium, he was not so popular, although M. Maeterlinck, A. Bergson and C. Baudelaire were interested in him.

In Russia, the writer made a strong impression on Leo Tolstoy and a number of other Russian writers. According to a number of statements by L. N. Tolstoy in diaries, letters and articles, one can see the similarity of Tolstoy's views with the philosophy of Emerson, which naturally fits into the system of views of the Russian writer. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy held Emerson very highly, calling him a "Christian religious writer."

In the second half of the 19th century, Ralph Emerson took the empty post of the spiritual leader of the American nation after his death.

RALPH WALDOE EMERSON

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882), writer, poet, philosopher and essayist, was one of the most representative figures in American literature of the 19th century. Emerson's speeches and essays largely determined the development of American philosophical and aesthetic thought and steel an integral part of the national cultural heritage.

Emerson lived a long life. He witnessed the rapid transformation of farming America in the early 19th century. into a developed capitalist power, the birthplace of the first strikes. Together with many compatriots, he experienced disappointment in the possibilities of American democracy during the unprecedented political corruption of the “Jackson era”. Not accepting the official slogan "America's special mission", he condemned the war of conquest against Mexico. The dramatic conflicts that accompanied the struggle between the North and the South and split the nation in two, echoed pain and indignation in his speeches, and the victory that gave freedom to the slaves inspired the creation of the famous "Boston Anthem". Emerson was the son of his time and his country, and his life and work reflected the specific features of the American character, the experience of American history.

A descendant of the early settlers of Concord, he came from a family that had given New England generations of priests. America's puritanical past entered the mind of the young Emersoy through familiarization with the family tradition. His father was a Unitarian pastor, and Ralph owed him, above all, a penchant for preaching, an interest in metaphysics, and a view of life through the prism of moral categories. His maternal ancestors, on the contrary, were businesslike and enterprising people. From them he borrowed a practical mindset, the common sense of the Yankees, which contemporaries noticed not without humor. J. R. Lowell wrote in A Fable for the Critics of the breadth of Emerson's nature, which combined "Olympic wisdom" and "an interest in the stock market."

From his own experience, the future writer learned what the American concept of self-made man means (a person who has made himself). He has come a long way from a messenger and a waiter to an acclaimed writer, one of America's deepest minds, whose fame has spread far beyond the New World. After graduating from Harvard University in 1821, he taught at the school for several years. Then, following the family tradition, he was a pastor in the Unitarian churches of Boston and other New England cities, but in 1832 he left the pulpit, unable to reconcile the mind and faith in some church dogmas. In the same year he made his first trip to Europe, where he met with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle. In the latter, he found a friend and like-minded person, with whom he continued to correspond all his life.

Returning to America, Emerson settled in Concord and devoted himself entirely to lecturing. writing and editing activities. He gained fame among his contemporaries primarily as a lecturer, and only much later, after the publication of two collections of essays, he received recognition as a writer.

In 1847, Emerson again went to Europe. In England, he gave a series of lectures on Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Goethe, Napoleon. On the basis of the lectures, the book "Representatives of Humanity" (1850) appeared, built on the principle of Carlyle's work "On Heroes, the Cult of Heroes and the Heroic in History", but differing from it in a democratic spirit. Essays on the national character of the English, literature and art were compiled in the collection "English Traits" (English Traits, 1856). This book was written by a benevolent observer who believed, like Carlyle, in the historical mission of the Anglo-Saxons. Just before the Civil War, a book of essays, The Way of Life (1860), appeared, and ten years later, the collection Society and Solitude (1870). Lectures and essays of recent years were included in the collection "Literature and Social Life" (Letters and Social Aims, 1876).

In 1836, Emerson published his first work - a long essay under the capacious title "Nature" (Nature). In the temporal perspective, it seems to be a milestone in the development of American literature and the formation of US philosophical thought. The essay contained in an extremely concise form the main ideas of the writer. He defined in it his attitude to being, nature, moral ideal, questions of knowledge, the place of man in the universe. In one of his rough drafts, Emerson wrote: "Creating a theory of nature and man, it is necessary ... to attribute freedom to the will, and good intentions to God" 1 . In other words, you need to take a point of view that will help prove the existence of free will (as opposed to the idea of universal determinism) and a good goal pre-established by the creator. This methodological principle can be traced throughout the writer's work. It is also central to his natural philosophy.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON Drawing by Eastman Johnson. 1846.

Emerson perceived nature as the otherness of God, a visible reflection of "divine plans". The aims of nature are to serve man, to give him the means of subsistence, to educate in him the concepts of morality and beauty, so that "the soul may quench its thirst for beauty" 2 . The process of spiritual purification requires solitude in the vastness of untouched nature, where only one can contemplate the miraculous beauty of the world. It is there, joining the world soul, that a person experiences a state of mystical ecstasy, a feeling of merging with the highest spiritual principle, which is dissolved in nature. Without reference to the source, he quotes the words of Plotinus: "I become a transparent eye, I am nothing, I see everything; the currents of the Supreme Being pass through me, I am a particle of God" (I, p. 16).

Belief in the possibility of communing with a deity, identifying oneself with him, characteristic of all mystical teachings, nourished Emerson's optimism. Emerson's philosophical optimism is the other side of his pantheism. The writer recognized - albeit with reservations - the identity of the divine principle and nature. Like other pantheists, he "dissolved" God in nature, deifying it. Rapprochement of man with nature is a prerequisite for mystical communion with God.

The title given by the writer to his first book was full of deep meaning. He outlined in it a creed, the most important part of which was the philosophy of nature. He continued further development of the theme "man and nature" in an essay with the same title ("Nature"), which was included in the second collection of essays (Essays: Second Series, 1844).

The concept of nature is already considered in it from two points of view: as the material world, “creating nature” (natura naturans) and as the environment around us, not spoiled by human intervention, *or “contemplated nature” (natura naturata). In the second meaning, nature is interpreted as the embodiment of the world soul, "divine city". The world of sublime beauty is compared with the prosaically real, which was quite in the tradition of the English and American romantic schools. But there was also something unconventional in this essay.

It reflected his interest in the natural sciences and evolutionary theories of Lamarck, Lyell, Cuvier, Agassiz. The American writer accepted the ideas of evolution, which were widely discussed in the scientific world, and he himself largely paved the way for their spread in America. The metaphysical conception of nature was destroyed by the joint efforts of scientists - contemporaries and predecessors of Darwin - and romantic philosophers, among whom were Schelling and Emerson.

In an essay in 1844, the idea of the unity of the world acquired a cosmic character. Emerson's imagination is occupied with the question of the origin of the world, he speaks of the first push and gravity, the plurality of worlds and the finiteness of the universe. "The famous first impulse was the spring that set in motion all the planets of the system, every atom in every planet, all animal species. It manifests itself in the history and behavior of each individual" (III, p. 177). Emerson uses as synonyms such concepts as single impulse, (single impulse), aboriginal push (initial impact), projection (launch), shove (pushing), and the word balls (balls, balls), as follows from the context, means "planets "because the dialogue between astronomer and metaphysician is about the origin of the universe.

Based on the law of correspondence, Emerson projects the laws of the microcosm onto the macrocosm and vice versa. Nature, he wrote, is characterized by generosity, without which evolution and survival are impossible. Reflecting on the problems of cosmogony, he speaks of a similar phenomenon: the first push in its strength must be many times more powerful than the force of attraction. The generosity of the higher mind in the social world takes other forms: in order to ensure the fulfillment of its plans, it endows people with an excess of spiritual energy (violence of direction), obsession, fanatical commitment to the idea (III, p. 177). This is precisely the "cunning of Reason" (Hegel's expression). Nature gives people an impulse that makes them fight each other. As a result of the clash of wills and practical interests, the highest goals are realized, which people did not even think about - Truth, Beauty, Goodness.

The essay "Nature" of 1844 ends with the thesis proclaimed as early as 1836: man is a particle of the divine essence; Humanity is moving towards a good goal predetermined by the Creator. The pantheistic theme of the first essay sounds in the epigraph of the second and in its final part: “If, instead of identifying ourselves with the created, we feel that the soul of the creator flows through us, we will discover that the morning silence is contained in our heart, and the endless forces of attraction and chemical interaction, and most importantly, the forces of life, exist in us in their highest form" (III, p. 186).

Thus Emerson's two essays on nature combined "the romantic and the real" (III, p. 165). They are written by a romanticist and a naturalist, united in one person. The poeticization of nature characteristic of romanticism is combined with a view of it as the result of the action of physical and chemical forces in "boundless space and infinite time" (III, p. 173).

Nature is one of those general ideas which, in Emerson's moral system, play the role of an ideal. In the lecture "Man's Relation to the World", the writer spoke about the amazing expediency of nature, the perfect structure of the world, all parts of which are adjusted to each other and are in constant organic interaction. Nature is a standard, its laws - symmetry, interconnection, proportionality, renewal, multivariance - are the criteria of beauty and morality. The writer evaluates human actions and activities of the human community from the point of view of their compliance with the laws of nature. This feature of Emerson's worldview anticipated to some extent the principles of social Darwinism. But unlike the representatives of this trend, he spoke about the need for moral assessments and constructed a moral ideal.

The ideal, to which Emerson devoted his whole life to promoting, was determined by the belief in the unity of the world and its moral basis. The idea of total unity, the interconnection of things and phenomena became decisive in his moral philosophy.

The writer was worried about the morale of American society. He saw the cause of many social ills in alienation, which he understood very broadly. Everywhere around him, he found evidence of the disunity of people, their alienation from the spiritual culture of mankind, from their own essence, initially healthy, and, finally, from the fruits of their labor. The motive of the disharmony of life, the gap between the ideal and the real is clearly heard in the lectures and essays of the writer.

He spoke about the spiritual trouble in the life of American society, one of the symptoms of which was, in the eyes of Emerson and some of his contemporaries (Cooper, Thoreau, Channing), the atrophy of individuality. In a country that was considered in Europe the embodiment of democratic ideals, phenomena were discovered that the most sensitive observers and historians of social mores wrote about with alarm.

In the essay "Self-Confidence" the writer's concern that the individual in America has become deformed, merged with the masses, clearly sounds. "We are all getting on the same face ... gradually acquiring an expression of stupid indifference, characteristic of donkeys" (II, p. 56). Sometimes Emerson resorted to strong means to prove the main thesis - the need to educate the individual, this unique creation of free will, intelligence and high citizenship. The writer associated the dignity of a person with unconditional submission to the voice of conscience, which he considered the voice of God in the human soul. He formulates the principles of spiritual individualism as a property of an honest and conscientious person who is able to distinguish good from evil on his own, without referring to the messages of the president or the manifestos of political parties. "There is nothing more holy than the purity of the soul. Follow its commands, and you will earn the approval of the world ... Good and evil are just words that we easily transfer from one concept to another. Good is only that which is consistent with my principles , and evil is only that which contradicts them. In the face of resistance, we must behave as if everything around us is ephemeral and insignificant, except ourselves" (II, p. 52).

To understand these words as a manifestation of moral relativism would be a great simplification. On the contrary, "they contain a condemnation of this dangerous trend. An innate moral sense, conscience, trust in Reason, an intuitive consciousness of what is Good and Truth - all this helps, according to the writer's deep conviction, to see base motives behind the screen of lofty words and loud slogans and selfish motives.

The idea of public service is imprinted in Emerson's teachings. A person must have the courage to do what he considers his civic duty, without regard to the prevailing views and institutions. Individualism, understood as such a way of thinking and behaving, is unquestionably moral, and sometimes acquires a shade of genuine heroism. The practice of "trusting yourself" makes a person great, Emerson said, and the fear of following the dictates of the inner voice kills the personality in him.

The theme of man and the crowd has always occupied the writer. He began to develop it in early public performances in the 1930s. In his lecture "On Modernity" (1837), he said that a crowd is a mass of people who are not individuals, dangerous in their unanimity and lack of spirituality, because they are capable of any destructive action. Real life convinced him that many of his compatriots had blindfolds on their eyes: at best, they only see what they were allowed to see. Too many blindly submit to group interests that run counter to the interests of the nation. This was the case, in particular, during the broad propaganda campaign that accompanied the US aggression in Mexico in 1846, or in the 1950s, after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law by Congress.

The social situation of those years put people before a choice: to be silent accomplices in crimes or to decide on a civil protest. Every thinking person, faced with organized violence - physical or spiritual - had to make a choice. Emerson helped many in this. His moral philosophy contained a deep analysis of the phenomenon for that time, which in the sociology of the 20th century. is called social conformity.

The study of conformity as a phenomenon of mass psychology led Emerson to understand the need for civil disobedience, although he did not use these words. The meaning of his preaching of "confidence in oneself" consisted precisely in a call for civil protest, not pouring out into violent forms - for an individual refusal to support the unjust actions of the authorities.

Emerson was not alone in this, of course. The idea of peaceful resistance to unrighteous laws was shared by American religious rebels: Quakers, non-resistances, perfectionists, some representatives of the Unitarian Church (W. E. Channing), New Wave Calvinist priests from Oberlin College in Ohio, abolitionists Harrison and Phillips. Among the transcendentalists, Henry Thoreau and Bronson Alcott were the most prominent exponents of the idea of civil disobedience.

In 1841, Emerson put forward the thesis, the meaning of which was that any state is unjust, and therefore should not blindly obey the law. The logical development of this thought was the essay "Confidence in ce6e" ("Self-Reliance"), where he spoke about the responsibility of a person, first of all, to his conscience. "Any laws, except those that we recognize over ourselves, are ridiculous" (II, p. 52). In his view, these were the laws of higher justice, not subject to the will of the legislator or official, a kind of moral absolute. The categorical imperative formulated in the essay presupposes the indispensable social activity of the individual. For Emerson, "confidence in oneself" was identical with spiritual nonconformity, heroism, and directly opposite to selfishness.

Leo Tolstoy, who highly appreciated Emerson's essay, saw in it the expression of his own thoughts. Tolstoy's non-conformism, both civil and religious, had something similar to the rebelliousness of Thoreau, Emerson, Parker. The echo of the disputes that raged in America about the relationship between true wisdom and political expediency, human institutions and the highest moral law, resounded in Russia, intensified many times over, in Tolstoy's teachings.

But there was another aspect in Emerson's teaching about "confidence in oneself". The philosopher reflected in it the features of the American national character inherent in "a man who has made himself." This is enterprise, independence of action, a kind of "economic individualism", perseverance and courage of a pioneer, and even a certain adventurism. This spirit was characteristic not only of the pioneers who mastered the Far West, but also of the Americans who inhabited the middle and eastern states, businesslike, energetic people who were the creators of their own destiny. "Confidence in themselves" meant for them reliance on their own strength, practical acumen, fortitude and endurance.

The idealization of such a typically American phenomenon as "a self-made man" coexists in Emerson's ideas with the rejection of compassion, mercy, and charity. He was alien to the ethics of compassion, which was developed in Europe by Schopenhauer and which was reflected, for example, in the novels of Dostoevsky. The flaws in Emerson's moral philosophy become apparent if we compare his central ethical doctrine with the moral preaching of the great Russian writer. Focusing on the laws of nature, where the struggle for survival dominates, Emerson believed that in society, people should not artificially create obstacles to the formation of character. Helping the poor, the weak, sympathy and pity - in his opinion, things are harmful. And in this respect he anticipated Nietzsche with his cult of the strong and disdain for the weak.

An important part of Emerson's ethical program was the concept of friendship and love as steps in the process of improvement. At the same time, Emerson's views had a clearly expressed teleological character. Love for the writer is not an irrational and blind instinct for procreation, as for Schopenhauer, not a biological instinct, as for Nietzsche , Freud, social Darwinists, but the instrument of all-good Providence in achieving its goal - the creation of a harmonious society.Passion, writes Emerson, - "like a divine frenzy, or enthusiasm, captures a person ..., produces a revolution in the soul and body", "aggravates feelings, gives courage to confront the world" (I, p. 161).

In understanding friendship (this theme Thoreau and Emerson developed almost simultaneously), the transcendentalist writers agreed on the main thing. They saw in it the second stage of the "erotic path of knowledge", the stage of man's ascent to perfection. An excited, confessional intonation, a quivering feeling, similar to falling in love, sounds in both essays on friendship. Some critics draw quite definite Freudian conclusions from this. Opposite opinions are also expressed. H. Waggoner, for example, sees in Emerson's essays ("Love", "Friendship") evidence of the writer's coldness. "They do not convince us that the author ever experienced deep feelings" 3 . Emerson's diaries and essays, however, tell a different story. He was always surrounded by students. Among them were Henry Thoreau, Stearns Wheeler, John Curtis, Jones Very, William Ellery Channing Jr. Whatever his feelings for them, one thing is certain: intellectual communication with young friends was deeply emotional, rich in subtle nuances, full of emotional experiences and dramas (Henry Thoreau mentioned more than once about the difficult relationship with Emerson in his diary).

Emerson once remarked that the best thing in life is frank conversation and trust, complete understanding between people. It was in this that he saw the hallmarks of friendship. In order to emphasize the loftiness of the subject of the image, he resorted to high vocabulary. Friendship, he said, is "divine nectar." In his essays, he taught people the science of communication, inspired them that the condition for a perfect relationship should be generosity, kindness, sincerity and tenderness. According to Emerson, the core of the future perfect society could be a community of friends, "a circle of god-like men and women ... united by a high spiritual life" (II, p. 197; something like the Transcendental Club!). As he wrote these words, the Brook Farm colony was taking its first steps. Its inhabitants and ideologists (among the latter was Emerson, who, however, refrained from direct participation in this utopian experiment), wanted to experience living together in a community based on communist principles. The bonds of brotherly friendship, they believed, could unite people on the basis of spiritual intimacy, equality, respect, and altruistic service to each other. The reality turned out to be much more complicated, and the colony of transcendentalists disintegrated after only seven years.

There is an opinion that the writer had little knowledge of human nature and built his utopia on a shaky foundation of idealized ideas about man and the world. However, it is not. In a diary entry dated October 12, 1838, we read a curious confession: “Human nature was well known to him (here Emerson writes about the “scientist” in general, but he also means himself, as can be seen from the following words. - E. O.) well known. He he knew the madness that seizes the soul from inactivity and monotony, he knew that if people's sleep, their routine, were disturbed, they would howl like nocturnal predators and be noticed like owls or bats, touching with their wings the one who brought them light.But he He also clearly saw that under this bestial appearance, under the sinister plumage, divine features were hidden. And he felt that he would find the courage to become their friend and by force lead them to the light of God, where the waters are clean and the air is fresh. He believed that the evil spirits that have taken possession of them can be expelled and disappear. Ridicule, scolding, blasphemy, those epithets that you give me are well known to me from books. They are as old as the world and do not seem offensive to me "4.

This purely personal confession, not intended for prying eyes, suggests that Emerson was not the idealist hovering in the clouds, as his contemporaries and critics often represented him. His optimism was a deliberate and hard-won position.

Emerson paid much attention to the development of aesthetic views, to which he devoted several essays. In his view, art can bridge the fatal gap for civilization between humanitarian culture and scientific knowledge. It must educate a "man of culture" (II, p. 86). At the same time, he interpreted "culture" broadly - as a humanitarian way of thinking, reliance on intuition, civil courage and the desire for harmonious coexistence with nature, philosophical tolerance and hostility to fanaticism in any of its manifestations. He derived the tasks of art from the triad - the unity of "Truth, Beauty and Goodness. The first goal of art, according to Emerson, is the knowledge of truth that is inaccessible to ordinary knowledge. Hence the idea of the prophetic function of art and the special role of the poet-prophet. The second goal of art, he considered the creation of incorruptible beauty, which bears the imprint of the highest perfection. In "Nature" he gave the following definition of beauty: "Beauty is the imprint of God on virtue "(I, p. 25). In this brief formula, the writer expressed an important postulate for him - the connection and aesthetic. Emerson's aesthetics had a clearly expressed ethical character, for he considered education the third goal of art. The purpose of the poet is to serve as a mentor and teacher, who, comprehending the truth, conveys it to people, inspires them with an idea of the beauty of the moral.

The didactic orientation of Emerson's work is the result of the fact that he was a follower of the Puritan tradition, which had among its representatives well-known New England theologians and preachers, Cotton and Incris Mather, Jonathan Edwards. Not sharing their ideas about the world, Emerson paid tribute to the educational role of Puritan literature, which promoted Christian morality.

He outlined his aesthetic views in his early lectures and speech "The Method of Nature" (1841), in two collections of essays (Essays, 1841, 1844). The first of them ended with the essay "Art", the second opened with the essay "Poet".

The central figure in Emerson's constructions was the figure of the creator of art - a poet, an artist endowed with a special gift of foresight, an intermediary between God and man, a creator of beauty, a conductor and preacher of transcendental wisdom, which he comprehends intuitively, with the help of Reason. The creativity of the artist and art are subject to the natural laws of inequality, gradation, hierarchy, in which there are higher and lower levels, because all things in nature and society are in varying degrees of distance from the source of divine wisdom, in other words, the oversoul. The poet in Emerson's aesthetic system stands closest to this absolute essence. Such an idea of the poet's place in society did not contradict the writer's democratic convictions. Equality, he believed, is a social and political category. Art has its own laws; there is no equality in it due to its inseparable connection with nature, which knows no equality. However, a special position imposes a huge social responsibility on the poet. The poet, Emerson said in his lecture "The Method of Nature," is the guardian and protector of spirituality in a country that is gripped by the madness of hoarding, smitten with greed, and experiencing self-doubt.

Emerson's moral utopia is the reverse side of social criticism of reality. The writer worked out a charter for the "correct life" and strove to follow it, although he did it far less consistently than Olcott or Thoreau.

The beautiful, according to Emerson, is not only moral, but has a practical use. Developing the idea of expediency in art, he anticipated some of the ideas that became widespread in the 20th century, in particular, the idea of the functional nature of art. Reflections on the nature of the beautiful led him to the idea that "beauty and holiness" (II, p. 343) can be found in everyday things, "in the field and on the side of the road, in the shop and at the factory" (II, p. 343). The subject of art should be all American life, in the maximum variety of its manifestations. He continued this theme in the book "The Way of Life".

Here, a shift in emphasis in the approach to the depicted is obvious, in comparison with the artistic practice of the early romantics, in particular Cooper, Bryant, and the Hudson School artists. In the 20-30s of the XIX century. American writers and critics agreed that the poet and artist should describe the grandeur of American nature: powerful rivers and endless prairies, virgin forests and majestic mountains. But Emerson, like Thoreau, was attracted not only by the beauty of the vast, mighty and boundless, but also by the charm of the ordinary and inconspicuous. At the same time, the angle of view remained the same: it was necessary to see the "divine meaning" in the depicted.

New motifs also appeared in Emerson's work. The artist's intuition told him that the creations of a technical genius could also be "sublime and beautiful" (II, p. 343). But at the same time, technological progress caused him serious concerns. The division of labor that inevitably accompanies it is shown to them as a social disease. Man, he believed, is increasingly becoming an appendage of the machine, which harms the individual, depriving her of independent creativity. He ends his essay "Art" with a phrase that seems to have nothing to do with art: "If scientific comprehension goes hand in hand with love, if science is controlled by love, then its power will be an addition and development of the act of creation" (II, p. 343). Thus, science approaches art as part of a single organic process.

"It is quite obvious," remarks Max Beym, "that Emerson has placed the real scientist in the same company as the real philosopher and the real poet." The artist is likened to the Creator, and the process of creation is likened to an act of creativity.

In connection with the characterization of Emerson's aesthetic views, it remains to say one more thing: the visionary quality of his talent. "America," he remarked, "is a poem that is being written before our very eyes... and it doesn't have long to wait for its singers" (III, p. 41). Like John the Baptist who predicted the coming of Christ, Emerson predicted the coming of the Great American Poet. Ten years after the publication of Emerson's essay, a star of the first magnitude lit up in the American literary firmament - Walt Whitman. The author of "Leaves of Grass" sang of America, fulfilling Emerson's command to the future poet - to sing "the rafts floating on our rivers, the stands at political meetings and the speeches that are made from them, our fisheries, our Indians and Negroes ... , the squabbling of rogues, the timid complacency of our honorable citizens, the industry of the North, the plantations of the South, the ax-clattering forests of the West, Oregon and Texas" (III, p. 41).

The development and formation of the poetic talent of Whitman, Thoreau, Dickinson took place under the direct influence of Emerson's artistic practice and his philosophical thought. Not the last role in this was played by his sermon of "self-confidence", addressed to the artist and poet: "Do not doubt, poet, but create. Tell everyone:" It is in me, and it will come out of me. "Stand on it stubbornly and adamantly, stand when your voice trembles and your tongue stutters, stand when you are spat upon and booed, stand and fight..." (III, p. 43).

The originality of Emerson as an artist lies primarily in the universality, philosophical depth of his works and the organic nature of the art form. One of the features of his poetics was incompleteness. It reflected the specific worldview of the writer, which one of the American critics called "kinetic" 6 . The world, according to Emerson, is changeable, in a state of constant movement, since the deity manifests itself in an infinite variety of forms, and the eye of the artist must capture its transformations and metamorphoses. The artistic figurativeness of his works should be just as mobile and far from completeness. The ordered form frames, according to the writer, the exact thought. However, exact thought is needed in science, while poetry, as the highest art, must avoid rigid frameworks, the orderliness of form is contraindicated for it. Emerson tried to translate this thesis into his poetic practice. So, he deliberately "deformed" his later poems, although he could easily continue to write smooth rhymed lines, observing traditional meters. The impeccable correctness of his early poems contrasts with the stumbling meter of his later ones, their fuzzy rhyme. This is a consequence of the installation on incompleteness. The imperfection of form is a tribute to a living, developing thought.

Emerson's vision of the world was symbolic, and this is noted by many researchers. In particular, the American scholar Sherman Paul connects the symbolism of Emerson's poetics with his correspondence principle 7 . The writer's idea of the analogy of two worlds - material and spiritual - determined the choice of artistic means, the main of which were symbol, metaphor, comparison. In his prose, many biblical allusions are scattered, calculated on a good acquaintance of readers with the Holy Scriptures. Biblical image-symbols in their traditional meaning, references to biblical stories and direct quotation are often used. A paraphrase of the Bible is contained, in particular, in the essay "Trust in Yourself". Urging people to turn to their own inner world and find support in it, Emerson writes: "And say to them [the crowd], 'Take your shoes off your feet, for God is here within'" (II, p. 70). Compare these words with the words of Yahweh, which Moses heard from the burning bush: “And God said: “Do not come near here, take off your shoes from off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus, 3,5 ). The biblical story about Joseph, who was seduced by Potiphar's wife (Genesis 39:12-14), served as the basis for the comparison that we meet in the same essay: "Abandon your theory, how Joseph left his clothes in the hands of a harlot, and run" ( II, p. 58). Emerson's point is that a theory should be abandoned if it interferes with the dictates of conscience.

Most of Emerson's symbols are based on associations, which was typical of romantic aesthetics. These symbols are mobile, changeable, ambiguous, open to various interpretations and give the narrative a suggestive character, a quality that the writer highly valued. Traditional romantic symbolism gets a special sound from him. Thus, the symbols of light - fire, glow, radiation - are very diverse and often have a religious connotation. Their properties he uses in order to express. some transcendent entities that can be comprehended, but cannot be described. He compares art to a flash of pure light, sees real beauty in the human character, which "shines in works of art" (II, p. 334). Emerson often refreshes worn-out metaphors, turning them into symbols, to an unexpected effect. Starting from the traditional image of "thought in captivity", he says: "Every thought can also become a prison, and paradise can become a prison" (III, pp. 36-37). In his figurative system, the stagnation of thought is tantamount to lack of freedom, gradual but inevitable death. Limitation and inhibition, as negative properties of thinking, are opposed to freedom, fluidity, mobility.

In comparing scientific facts and phenomena of spiritual life and establishing their "identity" Emerson saw a way to humanize science. Once in a letter, he noted that great discoveries in the field of natural sciences "will demand from poetry an appropriate height and scale, or do away with it" 8. The beauty of scientific discoveries delighted him, and he came to the idea of the need to combine science and poetry. It is no coincidence that he called Newton, Herschel and Laplace "poets". The consequence of this view was the widespread use of scientific facts in the language of poetry to create symbols, metaphors, comparisons. Here are a few examples of how specific objects and facts of science begin to play the role of symbols and provide material for metaphors.

Nature, which he considered the materialization of the spirit, Emerson described, in particular, as follows: “What used to exist in thought as a pure law is now embodied in Nature. It already existed in the mind in the form of a solution, but now, as a result of evaporation, it turns into a bright sediment, which is the world" (I, p. 188). In another case, the natural and the cosmic are identified. "Nothing is finished in nature, but the tendency is visible in everything - in planets, planetary systems, constellations; all nature develops, like a field of corn in July, becomes something else, is in the process of rapid transformation. The embryo strives to become a man, like that like that tangle of light that we call a nebula tends to become a ring, a comet, a ball and give life to new stars" (I, p. 194). Thinking about some spiritual forces that can keep society from disintegrating, he develops the idea as follows: since the solar system "can exist without artificial restrictions" (III, p. 210), then similar connections should operate in the social system. By opening them, you can cancel the state coercion.

It is widely believed that Emerson was more of a poet in his prose work than in poetry. Indeed, his verse is often rational, the tone is didactic, thought dominates the image. And yet Emerson's poetry shows us vivid examples of aesthetic innovation. The features of poetics that so influenced Emerson's great contemporaries are the lively intonations and rhythms of speech, the natural construction of the phrase, the widespread use of prose (a tradition coming from Wordsworth and Coleridge). His poetry reflects the writer's reflections on the problems of cognition, the meaning of transcendental categories, the hierarchy of Time and Eternity, and ways of moral perfection. It contains thoughts about the Essence of poetry and the role of the poet, the doctrine of conformity and compensation.

Most of his poetic heritage is composed of poems about nature. Some of them can be attributed to purely philosophical poetry, others are excellent examples of lyrical poetry. Among the latter are "Bumblebee", "Forest Notes-1", "Snowstorm". In the first of them, we note the style devoid of archaisms and poetically colored vocabulary. Light humor, long enumerations-catalogues of plants visited by the bumblebee, this "philosopher in yellow pants" (IX, p. 41), affect the senses more than the dry, rational style of the essay "Nature". The poem, imbued with tenderness for nature and its creatures, is reminiscent of some of Emily Dickinson's poems.

A vivid pictorial effect was created by the poet in his Snowstorm. The sharp north wind is likened to a skilled builder, bricklayer, architect, who creates a white miracle of palaces and towers from snow.

An interesting contrast is the diptych of "Forest Notes". The first is a lyrical hymn to nature and the "Bachelor of Nature" Henry Thoreau (although his name is not mentioned). Emerson's use of concatenation of different sizes, list-enumerations so beloved of Thoreau, deliberately unpoetic vocabulary, which creates a surprising effect. The second part of "Forest Notes", on the contrary, is distinguished by an elevated style and archaic language, but the idea of civilization's hostility to nature does not receive artistic expression here. The artificiality of the composition does not contribute to the realization of the idea either: the monologue of the pine tree is replaced by its dialogue with the city dweller, who does not see the divine meaning in nature. The moral lesson - nature's healing - is expressed frankly didactically.

Poetic illustration for the essay "Nature" is the poem "Death" ("Blight"). The consumer attitude to nature, the inability to feel its beauty turn into innumerable disasters:

Our eyes
Are armed, but we are strangers to the stars,
And strangers to the mystic beast and bird,
And strangers to the plant and to the mine* (IX, p. 123).

A scientist who perceives nature only with the help of reason is "a thief and a pirate of the universe" (IX, p. 123). About cosmic unity, the universal connection of people and natural phenomena, Emerson wrote in one of his most famous poems, "Everything and Everyone." The true beauty of nature can only be revealed to the pantheist and mystic, who perceives it as the unity of "Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

And again opened to hearing and sight
The murmur of streams, the singing of a nightingale.
And again beauty dictated to the mind,
And she got me hooked on everything again.

(translated by A. Sharapova)

The poet reflects on the methods of cognition, the existence of the moral side of the world in the poems "Sphinx", "World Soul", "Lament". In the first of them, the hero-philosopher, in a conversation with the sphinx-nature, solves one of its riddles. "Mere sight", sensory cognition is not able to understand the highest meaning of what seems ugly and cruel in life, but with the help of Reason-Intuition, one can comprehend a comforting truth: the moral law is the basis of everything that exists:

Inscribed with love
The drawing of the times
Though faded
He is in the rays of ambiguity. (IX, p. 11)

(translated by A. Sharapova)

This theme is especially vivid in the poem "World Soul". Describing the vices of his contemporary life, the poet struggles with despair and, in spite of everything, remains an optimist, since man for him is part of a great whole called the World Soul; both he and nature are subject to constant renewal: "Over the winter glaciers // I see the summer glow, // And through the wind-piled snowdrift, // The warm rosebuds below" (IX, p. 27) **.

Emerson writes about evil as one of the ways in which the world's laws manifest in the poem "Threnody". Its meaning comes down to the idea that even the death of loved ones should not seem like a tragedy, because death is only a transition from Time to Eternity. Another hero of the poem, the World Soul, draws to the poet an image of indestructible Nature, which should inspire hope. The theme of eternal beauty appears in one of Emerson's early poems, "The Wild Rose" ("The Rhodora"). Here the thought of the aimlessness of beauty is interesting - not typical for the poet. However, the somewhat ponderous, almost prosaic conclusion destroys the artistic effect of the poem. In "Ode to Beauty", on the other hand, rich alliterations, deliberately uneven rhythm give the theme a sublime and poetic sound.

In the poem "Two Rivers", the author, using the technique of parallelism, draws the image of a river on two levels - material and metaphysical. Musketacweed (the Indian name for the Concord River) is a natural analogue of the river of life or the stream of Eternity. The poem "Brahma", written under the influence of the "Bhagavad Gita", is devoted to the transcendental categories of space and time. In a laconic form, the philosophical idea of identity comes through here (“I am the doubter and the doubt” / I am the doubter and I am the doubt) (IX, p. 171). In "Gamatreya" (the name is inspired by the ancient Indian epic "Vishnu Purana"), the theme is the relationship between Eternity and Time, transient and eternal. To the latter, the author ranks the land, which a person tries in vain to own.

The more "American" poem "Days", also dedicated to time, treats the theme somewhat differently. The string of days is represented in the form of dervishes; they bring gifts to people - to each according to his desire: bread, kingdoms, stars, heaven. Beneath the seeming simplicity of form lies a deep content. The choice made by the lyrical hero, who "hastily took a few herbs and apples" (IX, p. 196), elicits a grin from the Day. The reader, versed in the techniques of romantic poetry, will also understand the implied meaning, which can be interpreted as follows: the judgment of the Day is insignificant compared to the judgment of Eternity, which will have the opposite sign. Here we see an example of suggestive art, the need for which Emerson argued in his essay "The Poet". But there is another idea here: simplicity is a good thing to strive for, because the restriction of desires (renunciation - in Emily Dickinson, economy - in Thoreau) is necessary for a spiritually rich life. The same idea sounds in the poem "The Day" s Ration ". Emerson echoes Blake in it: the famous "in an instant to see eternity and the sky in a cup of a flower" receives a peculiar design. One must be able to see the inconspicuous beauty of the surrounding , not to get carried away by the exotic of distant lands, to be able to enjoy the little and practice philosophical self-deepening - this is the meaning of this short poem.

The law of compensation is reflected in the second part of the poem "Merlin-2", where the poet's favorite motif of natural symmetry sounds. The first part of it is devoted to the theme of the poet and poetic creativity. Complementing and illustrating the aesthetic theory, Emerson created the image of an ancient bard who knows the secret meaning of being. His soul catches the pulse of the surrounding life and beats in time with it. The autobiographical motive here is quite obvious:

Song escaping from the mouth
tames the evil storm,
Turns a lion into a lamb
Lengthens the summer period
The world leads to the threshold.

(translated by G. Kruzhkov)

The poem "The Problem" is devoted to the theme of divinely inspired art, the unconsciousness of artistic creativity. Asking the question of how beautiful creations are created and what is the model, the lyrical hero replies that "the passive Master only allows the world soul to use his hands, which directs him" (IX, p. 17). About the builder of St. Peter in Rome, he says that he could not "free himself" from God and "built better than he knew how" (IX, p. 16).

Emerson's central ethical doctrine is illustrated by the poem "Trust in Yourself". To justify it, the poet finds images in nature. He compares the voice of God in his soul with the innate instinct of a bird, with the behavior of a magnetic needle, unmistakably pointing north, arguing that in good deeds he is always led by this voice.

Emerson not only managed to capture the spirit of the time, to capture its specific features in images that still do not lose their artistic value, but also to express eternal truths in poetry, which many great poets, heirs of the Emerson tradition, appreciated for the depth of philosophical thought and the freshness of the artistic form.

In the philosophical system of Emerson, a special place is occupied by views that can be called his social philosophy. In the most concise form, they are presented in the book "The Conduct of Life" (The Conduct of Life, I860), which was the result of the writer's philosophical reflections on the essence of life, the existence of the individual and the social community, free will and predestination, the relationship of man as a biological species with nature. .

The Calvinist doctorate of predestination has always been alien to the writer, but the idea of free will was formulated most clearly in this book, in the essay "Fate". He considered the will in two planes - social and metaphysical, which allowed him to reconcile freedom and necessity. If at the social level a person and society can decide their own destiny, then at the "cosmic" level there is only the good will of the creator, which Emerson called "beautiful necessity". "The ways of Providence to its goal are inscrutable, full of bumps and ruts," writes Emerson.

The study of the laws of evolution had a great influence on the writer's worldview and made him take a more materialistic view of nature and man. He came close to recognizing the biological concept of life, according to which the universal law is the struggle for survival - in the sea and on land, in the micro and macro worlds, in nature and society. He also tried to understand man as a biological being, he talked about biological determinism, genetic code, heredity, temperament. At the same time, he referred to the authority of the founder of phrenology, Spurzheim, who believed that the fate of a person is predetermined from birth and is laid down in the lobes of his brain. Unlike Spurzheim, Emerson did not believe that the influence of heredity was decisive, but he nevertheless amended his doctrine of boundless optimism. “We used to underestimate the power of heredity and thought that the positive power [Reason] could solve everything. But now we see that the negative power, the power of circumstances, is half the battle” (VI, p. 20).

The biological life force operates, from the point of view of Emerson, not only in the life of an individual, but also of an entire people or race. In the existence of strong and weak races, he saw the manifestation of natural laws. He considered the Anglo-Saxons to be one of the strongest races, about whom he wrote, like Carlyle, with undisguised admiration. "The cold and the elements of the sea will nurture the Anglo-Saxon race, the builder of the empire. Nature cannot afford to see this race die out" (VI, p. 36).

Emerson's racial preferences were not ideologically categorical, as was the case with Nietzsche or the Social Darwinists. In a speech in 1844 on the occasion of the decade of the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, he said that if the black race "bears the necessary features of a new civilization, then for the sake of preserving them, no Evil, no force, no circumstances can harm it. It will survive and will play its part in history" (XI, p. 172). The writer considered the historical events of previous eras in Europe and America as a process that took place under the sign of the emergence, powerful development and spread of one race, which, however, will inevitably give way to another over time.

The biological concept of life enters Emerson's worldview, coloring it in unusual tones for a romantic. In the book - at least in a number of chapters - we hear not a preacher talking about the spiritual and the transcendent, but a philosopher who is determined by biological forces. Behind the struggle of natural forces, he saw the good intention of Providence. "The whole cycle of animal life - tooth for tooth, the universal fierce struggle for food, the cry of the vanquished and the triumphant roar of the victors, until at last the whole animal world, all its chemical mass, becomes soft and purified for a higher purpose - this cycle, seen from a great distance pleases the eye" (VI, pp. 39-40). Here one can see some similarities with the ideas of Jack London's "Northern Tales", in which the biological concept of life was artistically embodied. But if cruelty in nature, according to Emerson, is a manifestation of a beneficent necessity, then Jack London saw the cruel law of a cruel world in the struggle for a place under the sun.

In the second essay of the book, entitled "Power", the concept of power appears as a synonym for vitality. Relations between people and groups of people - as Emerson saw them - are built on strength: in life's competition, the strongest wins. In the foreground, Emerson now has other heroes than those he wrote about in "Trust in Yourself" or "The American Scientist." Now the writer's imagination is dominated by personalities strong, energetic, ruthless and merciless to the weak and less fortunate. He likes adventurers who are "created for war, sea, gold digging, hunting and clearing forests, for dangerous and risky enterprises and a life rich in adventure." Their "explosive energy" (VI, p. 69) must find a useful outlet, and it is up to society to direct it in the right direction.

Primitive strength, virility acquire a positive social meaning in his eyes. Moreover, the desire for power, for the possession of wealth and property is no longer seen as something unworthy, but as a need for a strong and healthy organism.

In the chapter "Wealth" Emerson engages in an implicit polemic with Olcott and Thoreau, whose ideals of self-imposed poverty seem to him far from certain. Wealth, in Emerson's understanding, is above all freedom. Freedom to travel, do what you love, enjoy music, art, literature. Material wealth makes it possible to carry out one's plans, while poverty restricts a person's freedom and humiliates him. Here Emerson disagreed with his friends, Thoreau and Olcott, who considered freedom to be a state of mind independent of external conditions.

True to the rule of looking at each phenomenon from different points of view, Emerson made no exception for such concepts as money and property. Their positive assessment is contained already in the speech "Method of Nature". Now he interprets capital as the necessary foundation of culture and civilization, and competition and trade as useful things that contribute to the prosperity of the nation. If money is not an end in itself, but a way to gain freedom and develop culture, it should be regarded positively. "Wealth is moral" (VI, p. 102), says Emerson, while stipulating the socially active function of money. He plays an unusual role for him, thinking about the appointment of capital and free competition, about the danger of "enslavement" of the economy: "There is no need for legislation. Intervening, introducing laws against luxury, you will tear the veins of the economy. There is no need for government subsidies to industry, trade, agriculture "Make just laws, protect life and property, then there will be no need to give alms. Open the doors of opportunity. Do not slam it against talent and virtue, otherwise they will not blunder" (VI, p. 104).

The writer was not afraid to destroy the image of the transcendentalist philosopher, who has been associated in the minds of Americans with the name of Emerson for the past three decades. He approved of competition, condemned state intervention in the affairs of the economy (“the basis of political economy is non-interference in the free market”; VI, p. 104), expressed the conviction that private enterprise is the only reliable mechanism for self-regulation of the economy, the main law of which is demand and sentence.

The problems that Emerson dealt with will be raised in the journalism of the second half of the 19th century, in the books and essays of William Sumner, John Fisk, Lester Ward, Benjamin Kidd, Thorsten Veblen and other less significant representatives of social Darwinism, and in the first decades of the 20th century .— in journalism, stories and novels by Jack London and novels by Dreiser. Speaking about the continuity of philosophical thought of the middle and the end of the century, it is important to emphasize the difference in the basic principles on which the worldview of Emerson and, say, William Sumner was based. Adherence to the ideas of Neoplatonism did not allow him to cross the line that separated transcendentalism from the ideology of social Darwinism.

In the 60s, the absolute ideal for Emerson was natural harmony and the infinite diversity of the natural world. He established himself in the idea that the laws of nature, which equally obey "both atoms and galaxies" (VI, p. of an individual family and the actions of individual people are consistent with the life of the solar system and the laws of balance that prevail in nature "(VI, p. 105). The contours of the moral utopia in the book are blurred, and the features of the "organic worldview" that were previously less noticeable come through more clearly.

Emerson is developing a "philosophy of life" (this is how the title of the book should be translated), which could serve as a practical guide for people of various social and cultural strata. The main principle that should guide a person on his life path and a nation in its development, he considered the need to learn from nature and follow its laws.

In Emerson's eyes, striving for the good of man and society is the goal, and the means to achieve it are - nothing more, nothing less - the development of commodity-money relations, capital investment, the expansion of the sphere of production, natural competition, which should not be hindered by state protectionism. His recommendations were not only literal, but also metaphorical.

The main rule of the science of life was "ascent": spiritual development, moral perfection of the individual and harmonious, "natural" development of the social organism. To illustrate this point, Emerson constructs an extended metaphor that is worth quoting almost in its entirety. "The rules of a merchant are an approximate symbol of the rules of the soul ... One must invest money in a business; a person must be a capitalist. The question is whether he will spend his income or invest it in a business ... All his organs obey the same principle. His body - a jug in which the wine of life is stored. Will he waste it on pleasures?... This wine goes through the same process of sacred fermentation - in accordance with the law of nature, according to which everything ascends in its development - and bodily strength turns into mental strength and moral. The bread we eat turns into strength and governs animal functions. But in higher laboratories it turns into thought and images, and even higher into endurance and courage. This is what the interest on capital consists of. Your capital doubles, doubles again, then increases a hundredfold, and you rise to the highest rung of your ability.True frugality is to spend at a higher level, invest capital and do it ova and again; invest in such a way that it can be spent on spiritual needs, and not on satisfying the ever new needs of animal existence "(VI, pp. 122-123)".

Thus, the spiritual is emphasized as the highest value. Utopia does not yield its positions, acquiring only other outlines. In the chapters "Culture", "Behavior", "Beauty" the writer repeats the ideas of earlier essays, speaks of self-improvement, the development of free, independent thought, and the purifying effect of beauty. Let's pay attention to one more important idea. Emerson writes about the need to display life with more fidelity to nature than was accepted in the aesthetics of romanticism. "Divine Providence does not hide from people neither diseases, nor ugliness, nor the vices of society. It manifests itself in passions, wars, entrepreneurship, in the pursuit of power and the pursuit of pleasure, in hunger and want, in tyranny, in literature and art. So let's let us not hesitate to describe things honestly, as they are... After all, the solar system is not worried about its reputation...” (VI, p. 194).

Emerson knew how to observe life and feel the changes in public sentiment. His works are a kind of artistic document of the era. A sign of the times, about which he writes in the book, was the decline in morality associated with the decline of faith, the disintegration of ties between people, the strengthening of "materialism". The unbelief and skepticism that spread in society forced him to proclaim his creed again and again (“I find the omnipresence and omnipotence of God in the reaction of every atom in Nature”; VI, p. 206) and talk about the moral dignity of man and the need for nonconformity. It is these qualities that characterize, in his eyes, a cultural and religious person.

The most fruitful period of Emerson's work falls on the 30-60s of the 19th century. It was a time of aggravation of the conflict between the North and the South, which ended in the Civil War. The turbulent events of those years forced the Americans to comprehend their place in the world, to compare their history with the fate of other peoples. In America there were disputes about the meaning of history, its interpretation, about the nature and direction of historical development. Emerson also pondered these questions.

He expounded his philosophy of history with sufficient consistency in a number of essays. Like his contemporaries, romantic writers, he tried to catch the internal patterns under the surface of events, sought to establish a connection between the past and the present. Against a purely "event" approach to history, characteristic of American scientists, he spoke in an essay that opened the first collection of his essays and was called "History". "He who cannot unravel the facts of the epoch with super-wise comprehension, he serves them. The facts take him prisoner" (II, p. 36). According to the writer, to see the principle behind the phenomena means to find that thread of Ariadne, which will help to understand the labyrinth of disparate facts and formulate a pattern. For the story to make sense, the researcher must find a method. In search of such a method, Emerson turned to Europe.

The ideas of the philosophy of history developed by Kant, Herder, Schelling, Hegel turned out to be in tune with the thinker from Concorde. He saw in them confirmation of his own thoughts about the laws of history and social progress, the nature and sources of historical development. Like Hegel, he considered the world mind to be the driving force of history. The American philosopher believed that the world mind (he also used other concepts - the world soul, the infinite supreme essence, the supreme spirit, the oversoul) directs the development of mankind, determines the time of the fall and flourishing of civilizations, and ensures the continuity of historical eras. "History is a chronicle of the acts of the world mind" (II, p. 9), he wrote. - "All laws owe their existence to him, they all more or less clearly express the dictates of this supreme essence" (II, p. 11). In the struggle of human passions and interests, Emerson saw the action of the world spirit. He was close to Hegel's thought: "Individuals and peoples, seeking and achieving their own, at the same time turn out to be means and instruments of something higher and more distant, about which they know nothing and which they unconsciously fulfill" 9.

Whatever aspect of human life and activity the American thinker subjected to analysis, he saw in everything the action of the moral law directed by the world mind. He was close to the spirit of that current of the European philosophy of history, which E. Tarle called "eudaimonic" 10 . Its representatives considered the force guiding the historical process to be "intentionally all-good" and all-powerful.

In understanding progress as the realization of the principle of freedom, Emerson followed Hegel. In world history, he saw the movement of mankind to a state that would be characterized by a harmonious connection between the individual and the public, the absence of coercion, and altruistic service to one's neighbor. He attributed the achievement of the ideal of freedom to the distant future. But how did he imagine the process of historical development? We will find the answer to this question in his lecture "The Conservative" (1841). In it, he spoke about the fact that the source of development is the struggle of antagonistic principles - the past and the future, conservatism and radicalism, necessity and freedom.

The American state seemed to him an inevitable stage in the historical path of the nation. With philosophical calmness, he observed the dramatic events of political life, seeing in them the same “good necessity” (III, p. 199), which “protects a person and his property from the arbitrariness of the authorities ..., determines the forms and methods of management corresponding to character of each nation" (III, p. 198).

His attitude towards American democracy was ambivalent. From the point of view of common sense, he believed, US government institutions are successfully performing their functions. But if you look at them from the standpoint of higher justice and moral law, it turns out that they are far from perfect. He saw in the struggle of the parties a necessary attribute of historical development, but, on the other hand, he severely judged the Democrats for corruption and demagogy, and the Whigs for their lack of adherence to republican principles, among which he called the struggle for civil rights, free trade, broad suffrage, reform criminal code.

Publicistically sharply, he expressed distrust of politicians in the essay "Politics". For him, this is the sphere of expediency, the area where base passions dominate. Non-participation in such activities was his principle. And in this he followed Carlyle, who did not believe in the possibility of reforming society with the help of the ballot box.

Emerson's ambivalence about American democracy is explained by the dual focus of his vision. Creating an ethical utopia, he painted a social ideal that was strikingly different from American reality, a comparison with which revealed the imperfection of American democracy. But thinking about historical problems, he embraced the processes that took place not for decades, but for hundreds of years and involved different peoples and civilizations. This approach opened up the positive aspects of the American state.

Emerson was alien to the metaphysical view of history as a chronicle of crimes, a long and monotonous heap of misfortunes, as seen by the Enlightenment. The past in his eyes was heterogeneous, good and evil are inextricably linked in it, and their confrontation determines the progressive course of history. For him, the doctrine of the "useful past", which was formulated by Rufus Choate, a brilliant orator, lawyer, and politician, was unacceptable. He argued that it is necessary to cover only the bright sides of the past and keep silent about the dark ones. However, Emerson understood that the arbitrary selection and interpretation of events, the suppression of long-standing crimes and such facts as the persecution of dissidents, religious fanaticism, the Salem trials, is fraught with moral losses for future generations. He saw the task of the writer, philosopher, and historian in recreating a true picture of the American past, in which the ups and downs of the human spirit alternate with shameful evidence of mass psychosis, fanaticism, and cruelty.

Emerson solves the methodological problem of mastering history, explains the significance that historical knowledge has in his eyes in the process of personality formation. In the foreground, as always, are moral tasks. The writer seeks to find analogies between different eras, to emphasize the universal nature of the historical process, its "identity" (identity). The writer's intention was to explain the story based on the individual experience of an individual. At the same time, private life, "biography", acquires depth and sublimity. It is in this sense that history can be "useful."

The essay "History" clearly shows the influence of Kant, who considered time to be a transcendental category. Taking the lesson of the German philosopher, Emerson also considered time as a category of thinking, and not an objective property of matter. It was as if he "dissolved" the past in the present, "destroyed" time in order to emphasize the significance of consciousness, the experience of each individual person: "When Plato's thought becomes my thought, when the truth that ignited Pindar's soul takes possession of my soul, time ceases to exist" (II, p. 30). Each person, according to Emerson, can experience the history of civilization, because the whole past of mankind is contained in his mind, and personal experience contains parallels to historical events. Thus history becomes subjective, "as if it does not exist, but only biography exists" (II, p. 15). In the XX century. a similar view of history as "replaying the past" was expressed by the English scientist Roger Collingwood, who developed the idealistic postulate of the identity of subject and object.

In Emerson's work of the 1940s, there was an antinomy: "history is subjective" ("History") and "history is objective" ("Politics", "Conservative"). An opinion about Emerson's "anti-historicism" may arise if we rely on only one essay of the writer, "Nature", and do not take into account others, as well as his lectures and essays, where he often expressed his views on history. Meanwhile, he was consistent in his own way. Trying to expand the boundaries of subjective knowledge, he combined the phenomena of the cosmic and atomic levels. The doctrine of correspondence helped him to do this: since the soul of a person is a part of the oversoul, in which all the facts of history are initially contained, the individual destiny reflects, as in a drop of water, the entire history of the world. World history is related to life ("biography") in the same way as macrocosm and microcosm. There is an analogy between universal human experience and individual destiny, which you need to learn to notice, and more "confidence in yourself" will help to do this. Thus, Emerson's historical views merge with his ethical program. "History should be read actively, not passively... Then the muse of history will be forced to reveal her prophecies to us" (I, p. 13).

The basis on which Emerson built his philosophy of history was the idea of the world as a unity (identity) of the ideal and the material. For him, history and human destiny exist simultaneously, but in different historical dimensions. One is universal, the other is singular, one belongs to Eternity, the other to Time. By changing the angle, Emerson brought phenomena incredibly distant in time and found in them analogies with modern life.

Another aspect of Emerson's philosophy of history was his views on the role of the individual in history, which he expressed in his book "Representative Men" (Representative Men, 1850). So he called the great people who express the spirit of the times. This idea is not new. Emerson found it from W. Cousin, who in turn borrowed it from Herder.

In the UN ontological premise, Emerson followed Carlyle. He understood history as the embodiment of the divine principle, which is realized in the lives of great people. But at the same time he argued with the Scottish thinker. Differences are found on the very first page of "Representatives of Humanity". Great people - who are they? Chosen caste? A handful of geniuses elevated above the crowd? For Carlyle, the hero of the highest rank was the king - the ruler, combining the features of a priest and a mentor, who has the will, directs people, guides them "daily and hourly." Carlyle saw the path to salvation in strengthening power and restoring the cult of heroes. This idea was later developed by Nietzsche, who opposed the heroes to the crowd. Emerson's doctrine was essentially democratic. The strength of great people, he emphasized, is in their ability to give themselves to others. Their life is subordinated to one goal: to make sure that even greater people come to replace them. "The law of nature is improvement. And who can say where its limit is? It is man who is destined to conquer chaos, and while he is alive, scatter the seeds of learning ... so that people become better, and love and goodness increase" (IV, p 38).

RALPH WALDOE EMERSON

Photo of the 50-60s of the XIX century.

Highly appreciating the role of the individual, Emerson at the same time warned against worshiping authorities. Geniuses are called upon, Emerson explained to readers, "to open people's eyes to their hidden virtues, to inspire a sense of equality" (IV, p. 23). A truly great man is like a monarch who "grants a constitution to his subjects; a high priest who preaches the equality of souls... an emperor who looks after his empire" (IV, p. 28). Thus, in a dispute with a Scottish philosopher, Emerson defended the principles of democracy.

Emerson's and Carlyle's views of history are clear evidence of how; European ideas, crossing the ocean, received a very peculiar refraction in the culture of a young nation that had only recently destroyed class partitions. The deep democratism inherent in the American consciousness received its most vivid expression in Emerson's work.

"The error of the old doctrine of progress," wrote the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset in 1951, "was that it affirmed a priori the movement of mankind towards a better future" 11 . The idea of historical progress, which was shared by all transcendentalists and which was widespread in American theological and philosophical thought of the 18th-19th centuries, was first reassessed in the works of Melville and Poe, who were aware of the inferiority of the a priori construction of laws (recall Emerson's: "the law of nature is an improvement" ( IV, p. 38)). Both artists could subscribe to the words of Ortega y Gasset: "The idea of progress, which placed the truth in a foggy tomorrow, turned out to be an intoxicating potion for mankind" (11; p. 182). Disappointment in the ideals inherited by the Transcendentalists from the Enlightenment, the conviction that social progress is only an "optimistic illusion", gave a tragic sound to Melville's last novels and strengthened the eschatological motifs in Poe's work. Their countrymen, however, were not prepared to heed the warnings of the prophets. They were remembered only in the 20th century. And Emerson's speeches and essays continued to influence the American mind long after Poe's death and Herman Melville's silence. Largely thanks to Emerson, faith in progress, in the active role of the individual in the historical process, has become a characteristic feature of the American consciousness.

One of the most authoritative researchers of Emerson's work, Joel Porte, noted in the early 1970s that "among America's best writers, Emerson is the least understood and read" 12 . The reason for such a strange phenomenon lies not only in the fact that the writer's works are sometimes difficult to understand, but also in the fact that critics do not always interpret them convincingly. In the words of Irving Howe, Emerson "turned out to be deeper than his biographers and researchers are ready to admit" 13 .

Despite the large number of works devoted to the writer over the past decades, American criticism has not been able to give a holistic and completely satisfactory interpretation of his work. This idea was expressed in 1985 by Richard Poirier and repeated it two years later, emphasizing the need for a more careful reading of the text 14 . This is especially true of the writer, whose work is considered the richest in ideas in all of American literature.

In the multitude of opinions and assessments of Emerson's legacy—sometimes diametrically opposed—something in common can be identified. The attention of critics continues to attract such topics as the evolution of Emerson the thinker, the significance of his tradition in modern literature and politics; there is a continuing discussion about the concept of "self-confidence", about the meaning of his skepticism, how consistent he was as a thinker, how deep his optimism.

The desire to redefine the stereotypes in evaluation is clearly seen in the book by Barbara Packer (1982) 15 . She defines the evolution of the writer as a movement from exaltation and mysticism through skepticism to a new vision of the world, characteristic of a pragmatic scientist, and the affirmation of faith at a new level of perception of life. Unlike Stephen Whicher, who considered Emerson's skepticism "a denial of his transcendentalism," 16 she speaks of oscillations between two poles, faith and doubt. What is happening is not a denial of transcendentalism, but its landing - through love and life experience. At the same time, Emerson's idealism, his sublime faith in metaphysical truths, is preserved. Barbara Packer understands Emerson's skepticism not as a denial of these truths or a doubt about the existence of a moral principle in the world, but as a doubt about the objective reality of the external world (however, such doubts were overcome by the writer already in the mid-1940s). If for Packer Emerson's skepticism is primarily a method of cognition that enriched his optimistic philosophy with the recognition of the cruel facts of life, then the German scientist Herwig Friedl sees in him one of the sides of the writer's "double consciousness", a necessary threshold of faith.

It is widely believed that Emerson had a poor understanding of the nature of evil. Many critics argue with this point of view, in particular, Stanley Cavell and Everest Carter 18 . The fact is that Emerson's position was the result of painful reflections on the imperfection of the world and the tragedy of being. These ideas are contained in the diaries and notebooks of the writer and only occasionally break through in his essay. This topic has been studied in detail by Sakwan Berkovich, Barbara Packer, John Michael, Herwig Friedl, David Robinson 19 . The latter rightly noted that the source of optimism for Emerson has always been a deeply rooted in his mind belief in the existence of a moral basis for the world. He quotes Emerson's words from the essay "Illusions": "There is no chaos in the world and there is nothing accidental ... In it everything is system and gradation" (VI, p. 308), although people often do not realize this. Robinson considers Emerson's skepticism as one of the components of his worldview, what the writer invested in the concept of "nominalism". The critic's appeal to the essay "Nominalist and Realist" is very relevant, because it substantiates the principle of the dialectical unity of the particular and the general, on which many of the writer's arguments about the world and man are built. Here Emerson raised the question of the relationship between facts and general ideas and solved it dialectically. Interest in particulars, details, he argued, is an integral feature of the philosophical comprehension of the world; general ideas are needed for its holistic perception.

Emerson's worldview had two inextricably linked sides: mystical idealism and a natural-scientific view of the world; metaphysical abstractions and attention to the smallest details of being. These opposites are well balanced in the mentioned essay, in two essays bearing the same name - "Nature", in the book "The Way of Life", crowning his creative evolution. Difficulties in interpreting Emerson's legacy arise precisely when critics are not sufficiently attentive to both components of his worldview.

So, Barbara Packer is forced to admit that "Nature" is a cosmogonic parable, the meaning of which is very difficult to clarify "(15; p. 25). At the same time, the researcher did not escape the danger that, according to her, lies in wait for everyone who presumptuously dared to solve the riddle "Nature", that "Emerson's Sphinx" It seems, however, that it can be unraveled, but both essays on "Nature" should be considered in inseparable unity, which, perhaps, none of the critics does.

Among the most difficult concepts to analyze in Emerson's philosophy is his "confidence in himself", which is simply impossible to define outside of the historical context. The overestimation of its importance has led some critics to very paradoxical conclusions.

Thus, Harold Bloom sees in "confidence in oneself" the beginning of a tradition that received in the 20th century. highly undesirable development. The result of it, the American critic believes, was relativism in moral assessments, and self-reliance turned into a kind of "American religion", the political, economic and social consequences of which are "terrible". According to Harold Bloom, Emerson laid the foundations for America's "power politics". "The country deserves its wise men," he remarks not without irony, "and we deserve Emerson." Meanwhile, this irony is clearly unjustified.

As if anticipating Bloom's deconstructivist approach, Sakwan Berkovich defended the American thinker as early as the mid-1970s. "The biggest misconception of modern critics is the belief that, thanks to Emerson, the most significant part of our literature is antinomian (that our major literature through Emerson is antinomian)" 21. It is important to note here that Berkovich puts the meaning of "antinomian" , the opposite of what Perry Miller wrote about in Consciousness in New England. The critic emphasizes Emerson's democratism and interprets his self-reliance not as a preaching of selfishness and "immoralism", as Bloom later spoke of, but as a call for the independence of the individual. In his opinion, Emerson formulated not only the basic principle of American culture, but also expressed the national idea, clothed Puritan dreams of "City on the Mountain" in a romantic form of affirmation - through the combination of "autobiography" and "American history as a biography."

David Van Lier has also entered into a controversy with Harold Bloom about the interpretation of Emerson's "self-confidence."22 Some of the writer's judgments, he admits, can have dangerous consequences, but it is absurd to blame him for America's social ills. Indeed, it would be a stretch to claim, as does the German scientist Ulrich Horstmann, that Emerson formulated a categorical imperative that promoted "the industrial conquest of nature and served as a metaphysical sanction for the ruthless exploitation of natural resources." "Emerson's utopian consciousness," says the German scholar, "has led to the present situation, fraught with imminent catastrophe." However, in such an interpretation, the historical significance of Emerson's principle of "confidence in oneself" is completely lost.

The American philosopher and political scientist George Keithab also entered into controversy on this issue. He explored "self-reliance" in the historical context as a way of spiritual existence of the individual, as a necessary principle of democracy. "Emerson was the first to define the meaning of individualism in his contemporary democratic society, and since then no one has done it better than him" 24 .

Critics assess the evolution of Emerson's worldview in different ways. Some see it as moving from faith to disbelief and again to faith (B. Packer), from "ontological pessimism to optimism", and artificial optimism, hiding alienation from nature and fear of it (W. Horstman; 23; S. 49) . Others speak of the movement of Emerson's thought from transcendentalism to naturalism (D. Jacobson 25), from transcendentalism to pragmatism (R. Poirier, L. Buell, O. Hansen, D. Robinson). The latter defines this movement as follows: from "mysticism" to "power" - and connects the "fading of transcendentalism" with the growth of "ethical elements" (19; p. 113) and social criticism in Emerson's work.

One can only partly agree with the opinion of the American scientist. Emerson's transcendentalism has always contained sharp social criticism; it is not for nothing that it became the basis of his moral utopia. At the same time, the evolution of the writer is defined quite accurately. Considering the various aspects of Emerson's worldview in dialectical unity, Robinson proposes to accept the point of view according to which the degree of adherence of the writer to one or another view at different times was different. It is also true that Emerson's transcendentalism gradually "faded". Let us make a reservation, however, that the writer never abandoned his basic principles, no matter what emphasis he placed on the "philosophy of force." Emerson's thought developed in the direction that Henry Gray, who considered his work in the context of the philosophy of transcendentalism, defined as early as 1917 as a movement from the "theory of emanation" to the "theory of evolution" 26.

There are, however, researchers who do not see evolution in Emerson's work at all. John Michael, for example, concludes that Emerson only raised questions, but did not answer them - neither in his work nor in life. At the same time, the philosophy of the writer is completely ignored. Based only on the lexical analysis of the text, John Michael ascribes to Emerson's works an uncharacteristic tragic sound. In "Nature" he searches for - and finds - images associated with death, and on this basis he speaks of the gloom of the whole work. "Emerson's figurative language," he argues, "turns all nature into a corpse that she hides" 27 . The author of this study undoubtedly belongs to that squad of American critics who, to use the words of Harold Bloom, "do not restore the meaning of the text, but deconstruct it", impoverishing the legacy of the great writer 28.

According to Richard Poirier, critics, long influenced by the ideas of modernism and postmodernism, underestimated the importance of Emerson and the writers who continued his tradition 29 . The recognition of Richard Poirier emphasizes the urgency of the task facing researchers. Rethinking Emerson's contribution to the history of American culture, assessing both positive and negative consequences, and determining the mechanism of his impact on various areas of American life is a rather broad task, which can be solved only in a historical perspective as a result of the joint efforts of American and European scientists.

NOTES:

* (Our eyes // Sharp, but the stars are unknown to us. // And mysterious birds and animals. // And plants and bowels.)

** (Beyond the winter glaciers // I see the radiance of summer, // And under the snowdrift swept by the wind, // Warm rosebuds.)

1 Emerson R. W. The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks. Ed. by M. Sealts. Cambridge, Mass., 1965, v. 5, pp. 182-183.

2 Emerson R. W. Complete Works (Riverside Edition). Boston, 1883, v. I, p. 29. Subsequent references to this edition are given in the text (volume and page numbers in brackets).

3 Wagoner H. Emerson as a Poet. Princeton, 1974, p. 200.

4 Emerson in his Journals. Ed. by J. Porte. Cambridge, Mass., 1982, p. 200.

5 Baym M. A History of Literary Aesthetics in America. N.Y., 1973, p. 56.

6 Lieber T. Endless Experiments. Essays on the Heroic Experience in American Romanticism. Columbus, Ohio, 1973, p. 24.

7 Paul Sh. Emerson's Angle of Vision: Man and Nature in American Experience. Cambridge, Mass., 1969, p. 230.

8 Emerson R. W. Letters of... Ed. by R. Rusk. N. Y. 1939, v. 6, p. 63.

9 Cit. Quoted from: Anthology of World Philosophy. In 4 vols. M., 1971, v. 3, p. 356.

10 Tarle E.V. Essay on the Development of the Philosophy of History (From the Literary Heritage of Academician E.V. Tarle). M., 1981, p. 118.

11 Ortega Y Gasset J. History as a System and Other Essays towards a Philosophy of History. N.Y., 1961, p. 218.

12 Porte J. The Problem of Emerson. // Uses of Literature. Ed. by E. Monroe. Cambridge., Mass., 1973, p. 93.

13 Howe, Irving. The American Newness: Culture and Politics in the Age of Emerson. Cambridge, Mass., 1986, p. 32.

14 Poirier R. The Question of Genius. // Ralph Waldo Emerson. Modern Critical Views. Ed. by H. Bloom. N.Y., 1985, p. 166; The Renewal of Literature. Emersonian Reflections. N.Y., 1987, p. 9.

15 Packer B. Emerson's Fall. A New Interpretation of the Major Essays. N. Y., 1982.

16 Whicher S. Freedom and Fate. An Inner Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Philadelphia, 1953, p. 113.

17 Fried! H. Mysticism and Thinking in Ralph Waldo Emerson. // Amerikastu-dien. Jahrgang 28. Heft 1/1983, S. 41.

18 Cavell S. In Quest of the Ordinary. Lines in Skepticism and Romanticism. Chicago & London, 1988, p. 24; Carter E. The American Idea: The Literary Response to American Optimism. Chapel Hill, 1977, p. 82.

19 Robinson D. Emerson and the "Conduct of Life". Pragmatism and Ethical Purpose in Later Work. N.Y., 1993, p. 157.

20 Bloom, Harold Introduction. // Ralph Waldo Emerson. Modern Critical Views. Ed. by H. Bloom. N.Y., 1985, p. 9.

21 Bercovitch S. Emerson the Prophet: Romanticism, Puritanism and American Autobiography. // Emerson: Prophecy, Metamorphosis and Influence / Ed. with a Foreword by D. Levin. N. Y. & L., 1975, p. 17.

22 Leer, D. Van. Emerson's Epistemology. The Argument of the Essays. Cambridge, Mass., 1986, p. 13.

73 Horstmann U. The Whispering Skeptic: Anti-Metaphysical Enclaves in American Transcendentalism. //Americanstudies. Jahrgang 28. Heft 1/1983, S. 49.

24 Kateb G. Emerson and Self-Reliance. Thousand Oaks, Calif., & L., 1995, p. XXIX. The author, at the same time, is skeptical about the possibility of practicing this principle in the modern world.

25 Jacobson D. Emerson's Pragmatic Vision. The Dance of the Eye. Pennsylvania Univ. Press. University Park, Pennsylvania, 1993, p. 2.

26 Gray H. Emerson. A Statement of New England Transcendentalism as Expressed in the Philosophy of its Chief Exponent. N. Y., 1917, Ch. 4. Emerson, in Gray's words, tried "to reconcile the tradition of idealism, to which he had a purely emotional attitude, with the theory of evolution, which attracted him more and more" (p. 41).

27 Michael J. Emerson and Skepticism: The Cypher of the World. Baltimore, 1988, p. 88.

28 Bloom H. The Freshness of Transformation: Emerson's Dialectics of Influence. // Emerson: Prophecy, Metamorphosis and Influence. Ed. with a Foreword by D. Levin. N. Y. & L., 1975, p. 146.

29 Poirier R. The Renewal of Literature. Emersonian Reflections. N.Y., 1987, p. 9.

Biography

Ralph Waldo Emerson (Eng. Ralph Waldo Emerson, May 25, 1803, Boston, USA - April 27, 1882, Concord, USA) - American essayist, poet, philosopher, pastor, public figure; one of the most prominent thinkers and writers of the United States. In his essay "Nature" ("Nature", 1836), he was the first to express and formulate the philosophy of transcendentalism.

His father was a Unitarian pastor, after whose death the family suffered for a long time.

In 1821, Waldo graduated from Harvard, where he received a theological education. After graduating from university, he took holy orders and became a preacher in the Boston Unitarian Church.

He was a liberal pastor in the New England Unitarian Church. But after the sudden death of his first wife, he experienced an ideological crisis, as a result of which, in the autumn of 1832, he opposed the rite of the Last Supper, inviting the parishioners to leave his ministry. During the conflict that arose, he was forced to leave his parish, continuing to preach as a visiting pastor until 1838 in various parishes of Massachusetts. For his preaching work, the venerable emerson wrote about 190 sermons. He made a living by lecturing and by 1850 had become known outside the United States. Married in 1835 for the second time, he settled in Concord (Massachusetts), although the geography of his lectures already included Canada, California, England and France. From time to time, he rewrote his old lectures, compiling collections from them: Essays (1844), Representatives of Humanity (Representative Men, 1850), Features of English Life (English Traits, 1856), Moral Philosophy (The Conduct of Life, 1860). In 1846 and 1867 books of his poems were published. Some of his poems - "Brahma" (Brahma), "Days" (Days), "Snowstorm" (The Snow-Storm) and "Concord Hymn" (Concord Hymn) - became classics of American literature. He died in Concord April 27, 1882. Posthumously published his Diaries (Journals, 1909-1914).

Literary activity and transcendentalism

The text of the essay "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson became the manifesto of the religious-philosophical movement transcendentalism. In his first book, On Nature (Nature, 1836), in the historical speech "The American Scholar" (American Scholar, 1837), in "Address to Divinity Students" (Address, 1838), and in the essay "Self-Confidence (Self-Reliance, 1841) he spoke to the young dissidents of his time as if on their behalf. “We begin to live,” he taught, “only when we begin to trust our inner strength, the “I” of our “I”, as the only and sufficient remedy against all the horrors of “not I”. What is called human nature is only an outer shell, a scab of habit, plunging the innate forces of man into an unnatural sleep.

Ralph Emerson won the sympathy of readers in Germany, influencing F. Nietzsche. In France and Belgium, he was not so popular, although M. Maeterlinck, A. Bergson and C. Baudelaire were interested in him.

In the second half of the 19th century, Ralph Emerson took the place of the spiritual leader of the American nation that was empty after the death of Benjamin Franklin.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, May 25, 1803, Boston, USA - April 27, 1882, Concord, USA) - American essayist, poet, philosopher, pastor, lecturer, public figure; one of the most prominent thinkers and writers in the United States.

Biography

Married in 1835 for the second time, he settled in Concord (Massachusetts), although the geography of his lectures already included Canada, California, England and France.

From time to time, he rewrote his old lectures, compiling collections from them: Essays (1844), Representatives of Humanity (Representative Men, 1850), Features of English Life (English Traits, 1856), Moral Philosophy (The Conduct of Life, 1860). In 1846 and 1867 books of his poems were published. Some of his poems - "Brahma" (Brahma), "Days" (Days), "Snowstorm" (The Snow-Storm) and "Concord Hymn" (Concord Hymn) - became classics of American literature. He died in Concord April 27, 1882. Posthumously published his Diaries (Journals, 1909-1914).

Literary activity and transcendentalism

The text of the essay "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson became the manifesto of the religious-philosophical movement of transcendentalism. In his first book, On Nature (Nature, 1836), in the historical speech "The American Scholar" (American Scholar, 1837), in "Address to Divinity Students" (Address, 1838), and in the essay "Self-Confidence (Self-Reliance, 1841) he spoke to the young dissidents of his time as if on their behalf. “We begin to live,” he taught, “only when we begin to trust our inner strength, the “I” of our “I”, as the only and sufficient remedy against all the horrors of “not I”. What is called human nature is only an outer shell, a scab of habit, plunging the innate forces of man into an unnatural sleep. Summarizing his work, Emerson pointed out that it is dedicated to "the infinity of a private person."

Emerson's philosophical views were formed under the influence of classical German philosophy with its idealism, as well as the historiosophical constructions of Thomas Carlyle. The history of Emerson's thought is a revolt against the world of mechanical necessity created in the 18th century, an assertion of the sovereignty of the self. Over time, he absorbed the new idea of natural evolution, which came to him from sources "before Darwin", and began to relate with growing understanding to Eastern philosophy.

In the second half of the 19th century, Ralph Emerson took the place of the spiritual leader of the American nation that was empty after the death of Benjamin Franklin.

Russian translations of the works of R. W. Emerson were published before the revolution of 1917.

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Literature

Emerson R. Moral Philosophy. M. 2001
Emerson R. Oversoul (Russian) // Bulletin of Theosophy: Journal. - 2015. - No. 13.

Notes

Excerpt characterizing Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Kutuzov was in Gorki, in the center of the position of the Russian troops. Napoleon's attack on our left flank was repulsed several times. In the center, the French did not move further than Borodin. From the left flank, Uvarov's cavalry forced the French to flee.
At three o'clock the French attacks ceased. On all the faces coming from the battlefield, and on those who stood around him, Kutuzov read an expression of tension that reached the highest degree. Kutuzov was pleased with the success of the day beyond expectation. But physical strength left the old man. Several times his head sank low, as if falling, and he dozed off. He was served dinner.
Wing adjutant Wolzogen, the same one who, passing by Prince Andrei, said that the war should be im Raum verlegon [transferred into space (German)], and whom Bagration hated so much, drove up to Kutuzov during lunch. Wolzogen came from Barclay with a report on the progress of affairs on the left flank. The prudent Barclay de Tolly, seeing the crowds of wounded fleeing and the disorganized backs of the army, having weighed all the circumstances of the case, decided that the battle was lost, and with this news he sent his favorite to the commander-in-chief.
Kutuzov chewed the fried chicken with difficulty, and with narrowed, cheerful eyes looked at Wolzogen.
Wolzogen, casually stretching his legs, with a half-contemptuous smile on his lips, went up to Kutuzov, lightly touching his visor with his hand.
Wolzogen treated his Serene Highness with a certain affected carelessness, intended to show that, as a highly educated military man, he leaves the Russians to make an idol out of this old, useless man, while he himself knows with whom he is dealing. “Der alte Herr (as the Germans called Kutuzov in their circle) macht sich ganz bequem, [The old gentleman calmly settled down (German)] thought Wolzogen and, looking sternly at the plates that stood in front of Kutuzov, began to report to the old gentleman the state of affairs on the left flank as Barclay ordered him and as he himself saw and understood him.
- All points of our position are in the hands of the enemy and there is nothing to recapture, because there are no troops; they are running, and there is no way to stop them,” he reported.
Kutuzov, stopping to chew, stared at Wolzogen in surprise, as if not understanding what he was being told. Wolzogen, noticing the excitement of des alten Herrn, [the old gentleman (German)], said with a smile:
- I did not consider myself entitled to hide from Your Grace what I saw ... The troops are in complete disorder ...
- Have you seen? Did you see? .. - Kutuzov shouted with a frown, quickly getting up and advancing on Wolzogen. “How dare you… how dare you…!” he shouted, making menacing gestures with shaking hands and choking. - How dare you, my dear sir, say this to me. You don't know anything. Tell General Barclay from me that his information is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is known to me, the commander-in-chief, better than to him.
Wolzogen wanted to object something, but Kutuzov interrupted him.
- The enemy is repulsed on the left and defeated on the right flank. If you have not seen well, dear sir, then do not allow yourself to say what you do not know. Please go to General Barclay and convey to him my indispensable intention to attack the enemy tomorrow, ”Kutuzov said sternly. Everyone was silent, and one could hear one heavy breathing of the out of breath old general. - Repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army. The enemy is defeated, and tomorrow we will drive him out of the sacred Russian land, - said Kutuzov, crossing himself; and suddenly burst into tears. Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and twisting his lips, silently stepped aside, wondering at uber diese Eingenommenheit des alten Herrn. [on this tyranny of the old gentleman. (German)]
“Yes, here he is, my hero,” Kutuzov said to the plump, handsome black-haired general, who at that time was entering the mound. It was Raevsky, who had spent the whole day at the main point of the Borodino field.
Raevsky reported that the troops were firmly in their places and that the French did not dare to attack anymore. After listening to him, Kutuzov said in French:
– Vous ne pensez donc pas comme lesautres que nous sommes obliges de nous retirer? [So you don't think, like the others, that we should retreat?]
- Au contraire, votre altesse, dans les affaires indecises c "est loujours le plus opiniatre qui reste victorieux," Raevsky answered, "et mon opinion ... [On the contrary, your grace, in indecisive matters, the one who is more stubborn remains the winner, and my opinion …]
- Kaisarov! shouted Kutuzov to his adjutant. - Sit down and write an order for tomorrow. And you,” he turned to another, “drive along the line and announce that tomorrow we will attack.
While the conversation with Raevsky was going on and the order was being dictated, Wolzogen returned from Barclay and reported that General Barclay de Tolly would like to have a written confirmation of the order that the field marshal had given.
Kutuzov, without looking at Wolzogen, ordered that this order be written, which, quite thoroughly, in order to avoid personal responsibility, the former commander-in-chief wanted to have.
And according to an indefinable, mysterious connection that maintains the same mood throughout the army, called the spirit of the army and constituting the main nerve of the war, Kutuzov’s words, his order for battle for tomorrow, were transmitted simultaneously to all parts of the army.
Far from the very words, not the very order, were transmitted in the last chain of this connection. There was not even anything similar in those stories that were passed on to each other at different ends of the army, to what Kutuzov said; but the meaning of his words was communicated everywhere, because what Kutuzov said did not follow from cunning considerations, but from a feeling that lay in the soul of the commander in chief, as well as in the soul of every Russian person.
And having learned that tomorrow we will attack the enemy, having heard confirmation from the highest spheres of the army of what they wanted to believe, the exhausted, hesitant people were comforted and encouraged.

The regiment of Prince Andrei was in reserves, which until the second hour stood behind Semenovsky in inactivity, under heavy artillery fire. In the second hour, the regiment, which had already lost more than two hundred men, was moved forward into a trodden oat field, to that gap between Semyonovsky and the kurgan battery, where thousands of people were beaten that day and on which, in the second hour of the day, intensely concentrated fire was directed from several hundred enemy guns.
Without leaving this place and without releasing a single charge, the regiment lost another third of its people here. In front and especially on the right side, in the smoke that did not dissipate, cannons boomed, and from the mysterious area of smoke that covered the entire area in front, cannonballs and slowly whistling grenades flew out without ceasing, with a hissing quick whistle. Sometimes, as if giving rest, a quarter of an hour passed, during which all the cannonballs and grenades flew over, but sometimes for a minute several people were pulled out of the regiment, and the dead were constantly dragged away and the wounded carried away.
With each new blow, fewer and fewer accidents of life were left for those who had not yet been killed. The regiment stood in battalion columns at a distance of three hundred paces, but, despite the fact, all the people of the regiment were under the influence of the same mood. All the people of the regiment were equally silent and gloomy. Rarely was a conversation heard between the rows, but this conversation fell silent every time a blow was heard and a cry: “Stretcher!” Most of the time, the people of the regiment, by order of the authorities, sat on the ground. Who, having removed the shako, diligently dissolved and again collected the assemblies; some with dry clay, spreading it in their palms, polished the bayonet; who kneaded the belt and tightened the buckle of the sling; who diligently straightened and bent over the new hems and changed shoes. Some built houses from Kalmyk arable land or wove braids from stubble straw. Everyone seemed quite immersed in these activities. When people were wounded and killed, when stretchers were dragged, when our people were returning back, when large masses of enemies were visible through the smoke, no one paid any attention to these circumstances. When artillery and cavalry rode forward, the movements of our infantry were visible, approving remarks were heard from all sides. But the events that were completely extraneous, which had nothing to do with the battle, deserved the greatest attention. As if the attention of these morally tormented people rested on these ordinary, everyday events. The artillery battery passed in front of the front of the regiment. In one of the artillery boxes, the tie-down line intervened. “Hey, that tie-down! .. Straighten it! It will fall ... Oh, they don’t see it! .. - they shouted from the ranks in the same way throughout the regiment. Another time, a small brown dog with a firmly raised tail drew general attention, which, God knows where it came from, ran in an anxious trot in front of the ranks and suddenly squealed from a close-hitting shot and, tail between its legs, rushed to the side. There were chuckles and squeals all over the regiment. But entertainment of this kind continued for minutes, and for more than eight hours people had been standing without food and doing nothing under the unceasing horror of death, and pale and frowning faces grew paler and more frowning.

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