Representative Men: Seven Lectures

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.3

Word count: 333K words
Chapters: 34

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Representative Men: Seven Lectures by Ralph Waldo EmersonAuthor: Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 1, 2004

Editor's review

Representative Men: Seven Lectures is a collection of Emerson's lectures that uses seven representative figures as a thread to discuss the relationship between great men and their age, and between thought and action. The work continues Emerson's concern with the individual spirit, intuition and self-reliance, and its language is concise and aphoristic. It is not a strict biography but rather a vehicle for the author's judgments on human nature and culture; it will appeal to readers interested in American Transcendentalism, character criticism and essayistic thought. The public-domain electronic edition is convenient for excerpting and comparison, and can serve as an introductory text for understanding the intellectual atmosphere of nineteenth-century America; it also rewards repeated reading and reflection.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Emerson and Transcendentalist thought
Readers who enjoy essays and aphoristic expression
Those who want to approach nineteenth-century American intellectual history through character criticism
Teachers and students who need public-domain English materials for excerpting and classroom discussion

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a systematic biography or detailed historical scholarship
Those who prefer plot-driven narrative and light reading
Readers impatient with abstract philosophical discussion

Reading tips

Read one lecture at a time, then summarize the central traits of that figure in your own words.
Excerpt the aphoristic sentences and compare them with Emerson's other essays.
Read the introduction or learn about Transcendentalism first, then move on to the individual figures.
Group the seven lectures by theme to observe the threads of thought the author repeatedly emphasizes.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Are these seven lectures biographies?

Not biographies in the strict sense. Emerson uses the figures to develop his ideas, focusing on his views of great men, their age and the life of the spirit; historical detail is not the book's main concern.

Can I read it without a background in philosophy?

Yes, but read slowly. The work is written in lecture form, with concise and abstract sentences; it is advisable to first learn Emerson's and Transcendentalism's basic ideas, then proceed lecture by lecture.

Is it better for classroom excerpting or for reading through?

Both are possible. Reading through reveals the intellectual connections among the seven lectures; classroom excerpting can focus discussion on a single figure or theme, and the public-domain electronic edition is convenient for excerpting and distribution.

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About the author

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882 Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American thinker, essayist and poet, though public information on the details of his life is limited. The library holds eleven of his works, mainly essays and poetry, including Nature, the first and second series of Essays, Representative Men: Seven Lectures, and Poems, as well as two volumes of his correspondence with Thomas Carlyle. His writing is best known for concise, philosophically rich essays that blend observations of nature, moral reflection and personal spiritual experience, in a plain yet forceful style with broad imagery. His essays and poems have had a profound influence on later American thought and literature.