If Rousseau’s Emile envisages a
wonderful pattern or a benchmark for the education of children, an education
that goes the Krishnamurti way, through the Nature connect, Emerson’s phenomenal
work titled, Nature, published first in 1836,
nurtures in American hearts an exemplary rubric for restoring the
human-nature-god connect, which, to him, and a host of transcendentalists of
his ilk, was lost somewhere down the way!
In other words, Emerson’s Nature, was also an exemplary benchmark of sorts, for it eulogises
in such beautifully evocative language, the aesthetic, the spiritual and the
practical advantages there are, to the American landscape, or in other words
the benefits of the human-nature-god connect vis-à-vis the American landscape!
Interestingly, the year 1836 is memorable on many other counts too!
It was the year Carlyle published his Sartor
Resartus and his subsequent The
French Revolution: A History happened the next year, in 1837.
And that’s another coincidence that Charles
Dickens published his Sketches by Boz in the same year! (1836) Let’s also not forget the fact
that Boz (Dickens) got married to Catherine Hogarth, only because of the
astounding success of his Sketches!
Added fact is that, Sketches by Boz
remains his first published book ever!
Coming back to Emerson, who is fondly referred
to as the ‘Prophet of the American Religion’ by Harold Bloom,
Well, the Emerson impact on a generation of
writers is then not quite a surprise though! Thoreau took a leaf out of
Emerson’s book when he made his observations of Nature much more concretised,
like there was to the Hegel – Marx duo!
Whitman, in his Leaves of Grass gave poetic
wings to Emerson’s clarion call for a return to Nature! Furthermore, the
Emerson – John Muir connect is yet another pivotal topic for much interesting
deliberation that needs more elucidation, albeit on a later post!
If Shakespeare’s titular claim to fame was ‘Bard of Avon,’ Emerson’s titular claim
to fame rests in the sobriquet, Sage of
Concord, and he remains - till date - the dominant ‘sage’ of the American imagination!
The Emersonian evocative enthrall continues…
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