Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Emerson in His Journals

Emerson in His Journals

Porte, Joel
Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Paperback

PhilosophyLiterary FiguresLiterary Criticism

ISBN10: 0674248627
ISBN13: 9780674248625
Publisher: Belknap Press
Published: Apr 15 1984
Pages: 608
Weight: 2.00
Height: 1.48 Width: 6.04 Depth: 9.36
Language: English

This long-awaited volume offers the general reader the heart of Emerson's journals, that extraordinary series of diaries and notebooks in which he poured out his thoughts for more than fifty years, beginning with the luckless ragamuffin ideas of his college days.

Emerson as revealed in his journals is more spontaneous, more complex, more human and appealing than he appears in the published works. This man is the seeker rather than the sage; he records the turmoil, struggle, and questioning that preceded the serene and confident affirmations of the essays. He is honest, earthy, tough-minded, self-critical (I am a lover of indolence, & of the belly), warm in his enthusiasms, a witty and sharp observer of people and events. Everything is grist for his mill: personal experiences, his omnivorous reading, ruminations on matters large and small, his doubts and perplexities, public issues and local gossip. There are abrupt shifts in subject and tone, reflecting the variousness of his moods and the restless energy of his mind.

Drawing from Harvard's sixteen-volume scholarly edition of the journals--but omitting the textual apparatus that makes it hard to read--Joel Porte presents a sympathetic selection that brings us close to Emerson the man.

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