Jerry Killingsworth

Emerson's Life-&-Essays Jerry Killingsworth

The author gives an overview and places Ralph Waldo Emerson in perspective. This includes his life of life which must be considered along with his essays, Nature, The American Scholar, Self Reliance. and Conduct of Life. Emerson comes off as one of the greatest American, even though, at times, he is symbolic and vague in his treatment of nature as symbol, rather than spirit. His essays are not all easy to understand with a casual reading, but he is a foundational figure in American philosophy and literature. The author calls him a literary philosopher who influenced some of the most unique thinkers in America - Whitman, Thoreau, Frost, Dewey, William James, and Emerson was influenced by Wordsworth and Coleridge.