 |
American
Literature: Romanticism
Student Research Submissions
2013 |
 |
Beverly Li
Emerson’s Greek Connection
In our class selections from
The Over-Soul, Ralph Waldo Emerson
mentions several Greek philosophers.
Studying Emerson is new to me, as is studying the
ancient Greek philosophers in my current humanities class. I was curious to see
the connection between 400 B.C. and 1800 A.D. ways of thinking, so I looked for
resources that discussed the influence of the writings of Plato and the
Neoplatonists upon Emerson within the context of Romanticism.
An internet search brought up John Smith Harrison’s 1910
The Teachers of Emerson,
in e-book format.
As noted in the preface, Harrison devotes most of
the book to the “essentially Platonic quality of Emerson’s thoughts.” One of the
ways Emerson reflects a Platonic quality is with his use of words as symbols.
Harrison supports this claim with Socrates’ view
that “'names properly imposed are like the things, of which they are the names
laid down, and are resemblances of the things” (35). Apparently, Heraclitus
(535- 475 B.C.) was the first to compare life to a stream, and this idea was
passed to Plato, on to the Platonists, on again to Emerson, who used it as a
“characteristic image” of universal life (68). The similarity continues with
Emerson’s idea of nature’s universal antagonism, with its polarity, action and
reaction, being a “development of the Pythagorean notion” (69). Additionally,
Emerson’s notion of poets as “liberating Gods” is similar to the Platonists’
technical term of “liberated gods” (210).
Notions and technical terms converge upon a seventeenth-century mystic on their
route to Emerson.
John Michael
Corrigan’s article,
"The
Metempsychotic Mind: Emerson and Consciousness,"
discusses the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) as almost a stumbling
block between Emerson and the NeoPlatonists.
Emerson
“admires Swedenborg's mysticism as a ‘path [that] is difficult, secret and beset
with terror’ (61), but he disapproves of the systematic order Swedenborg places
upon it.
Corrigan compares Emerson’s uneasiness with
systematization as related to transformative illumination, as “part of the
character of Neoplatonism itself, for though later Neoplatonists like Iamblichus
and Proclus elaborately systematized the mystical tradition they inherited, they
always stressed the overarching importance of the
beyond, an opening in thinking that uses the
hierarchy of Intellect, but is willing to abandon it in the ecstasy of the
spirit” (67). Corrigan also states that Emerson
places high value on the process of the mind opening up, as expressed in his
favorite poem, "The Sphinx."
Speaking of Egypt, in
Emerson and Asia, Frederic Carpenter
realizes the Neoplatonists were not Asians geographically, but to Emerson they
represented the mystery and romance of the Orient. As another one of my
humanities classes taught, he was not alone in this absurdly broad Occidental
view of the distant unknown.
Carpenter goes on to describe the Oriental quality
of Neoplatonism, which was founded by Ammonius Saccas, but led by his pupil
Plotinus. He claims the teachings of Plato to be Hindu and Persian in spirit,
and that Emerson discovered Hinduism through Neoplatonism. “His essay on Plato
is the locus classicus for the
expression of Orientalism in Emerson’s writings” (43). According to Carpenter,
Emerson found his theories of nature and evil in the teachings of Plotinus, with
more evidence of Greek influence in another of his works. "If Emerson's
discussion of
Nature is often Neoplatonic, his doctrine of
the Over-Soul practically is Neoplatonism. It is the theory of spiritual
emanation—the theory that from an Absolute source, the living water (or
sometimes the metaphor is that of light) streams down into all creatures below,
imparting to them the divine vital energy" (75).
Of the works I examined, these three (Harrison, Corrigan, Carpenter) gave the
most evidence of a connection that is not all that popular as a subject to write
about. This lack of popularity may in part be due to the fact that Emerson does
not always credit the sources of his ideas. I agree with Carpenter’s findings of
a “comparative neglect of Neoplatonism as a prime factor in influencing
Emerson's intellectual development,” and Carpenter has a reason for it: “For
Emerson their philosophy was so elemental and abstract that he naturally
absorbed it to himself. (51-2)" This theory falls in line with Emerson’s own
words as quoted on the
Old Friends portion of the RWE.org
website: “I read Proclus, and sometimes Plato, as I might read a dictionary, for
a mechanical help to the fancy and the imagination. I read for the lustres, as
if one should use a fine picture in a chromatic experiment, for its rich colors.
'Tis not Proclus, but a piece of nature and fate that I explore. It is a greater
joy to see the author's author, than himself.”
In conclusion, the ideas of ancient Greeks, which were
probably influenced by Asian cultures, made their way through various great
minds to land on the great pages of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s idealism, mingled and
interpreted and modified.
He considered them to be reference tools.
Emerson sought and used a vast multitude of
resources, both in the form of people he met and books he read.
I have not attempted to give the topic thorough
coverage, but merely peeked into its vast depths, enough to satisfy my
curiosity.
Each of Emerson’s works, particularly
The Over-Soul and
Nature, could be examined further for
Greek influence.
Carpenter, Frederic Ives.
Emerson and Asia. Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 1930. Print.
Corrigan, John Michael. "The Metempsychotic Mind: Emerson and
Consciousness." Journal of the History of Ideas 71.3 (2010): 433-455. Project
MUSE. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.
Emerson, Ralph W. "VIII Nominalist and
Realist." The Works of Emerson: RWE.org.
N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.
<http://rwe.org/complete/complete-works/iii-essays-ii/viii-nominalist-and-realist.html>.
Harrison, John Smith.
The Teachers of Emerson. New
York: Sturgis & Walton, 1910. Google Books.
Google. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.
"Old Friends."
The Works of Emerson: RWE.org.
Ed. Jim Manley. N.p., 1998. Web. 17 Mar. 2013.
<http://www.rwe.org/biography/old-friends.html>.
