Emerson and the works of Melancholia

Ralph Waldo Emerson was considered a Romantic poet. Romantic poets write a lot about nature, love, patriotism, God, religion, and feelings. Later in his life time though, he was considered a Transcendentalist. Transcendentalists usually thought things through with their intuition, and it took them a long time to evaluate and examine things. Emerson moved over to becoming a Transcendentalists through his life experiences. All people change, and for Emerson, he changed from a Romanticist to a Transcendentalist. His changes (obviously) showed up in his writings.

Emerson started to become very melancholy in his works. He starts out with "Self-Reliance" by saying that all men should think on their own and not follow in other mens' footsteps. He says men should have a mind of their own and work well independently. Soon, Emerson starts to hide a bit of grief in his works:

"The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible society … I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat [sic] you have stated in this or that public place?" (Emerson).

Emerson's grief is obvious because he is talking about death and dead things. He asks why a man should be concerned with things that are dead (or just not of use) and drag them on along side them when they do not need them.

From his essay, "Compensation", Emerson says:

"Every soul is by … intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, and laws, and faith, as the shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are incessant…. And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day…. But to us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks" (Emerson).

Here Emerson is saying that our mind wants to make its thoughts be like real things. Whether the real thing is church, nature, or anything else. Emerson says that to think these things are the absolute truth is where our chief sorrows lie.

As the reader can see, Emerson starts to reject the ideas of Romanticism. He becomes a lot more melancholy, and he asks questions about why men do things, or why they think things that make them feel sad or sorry. He becomes more like a Transcendentalist because he goes over these questions and ideas several times in several essays, and he tries to find the meaning behind it all.

"Emerson and the Work of Melancholia." Raritan (Spring 1987). Quoted as "Emerson and the Work of Melancholia" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Updated Edition, Bloom's Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= MCVRWE007&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 17, 2010).