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Emerson Notes

Emerson Notes. E.’s Plan for Self Reliance. Emerson stresses the importance of independent thought “Imitation is suicide.” If you copy other people, you are killing off that unique quality that defines your “self.”

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Emerson Notes

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  1. Emerson Notes E.’s Plan for Self Reliance

  2. Emerson stresses the importance of independent thought • “Imitation is suicide.” If you copy other people, you are killing off that unique quality that defines your “self.” • He encourages us to trust ourselves, not our petty, biased self, but the inner truth we find when we truly consider the world.

  3. Society and the world at large are in conspiracy against each us to conform. • They are obstacles to self reliance.

  4. Obstacles to self reliance

  5. First Obstacle: Conformity • Trust your self. • Don’t join groups and activities just because they are popular • Don’t let your demeanor or personality reek of apology: be proud of who you are. • Create and recreate yourself freely everyday.

  6. Conformity (c0nt.) • In solitude we trust ourselves, but in public we conform • Philanthropy is a type of conformity… we give to fit in or feel good • We take on many labels and join groups instead of searching for ourselves within

  7. Second Obstacle: Consistency • A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. • He assures us that deviation from a perceived goal is not a failure. • A mile is no more than a millimeter in the span of the universe.

  8. Third Obstacle: Travel • “The wise man stays at home.” • We should only travel for education and the arts, not to “find ourselves.”

  9. Fourth Obstacle: Prayer • Our prayer is “mendicant” and “sycophantic” • It supposes a duality rather than reaffirming the connective between humans and the divine • You can’t “pray” to something that is part of you!

  10. Emerson’s Style and Techniques • Defines his own terms: philanthropy, genius, prayer • His diction is fairly academic. What other adjectives describe his choice of words? • Very aphoristic in style • Uses a variety of periodic (subject near the period) and loose sentence constructions. (Syntax)

  11. Example of a Periodic Sentence • "Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed.“ (Dylan Thomas, A Christmas in Wales)

  12. Loose Sentence • I found a large hall, obviously a former garage, dimly lit, and packed with cots. (Eric Hoffer)

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