Self-Reliance and Other Essays
Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841
Emerson made the essay into an American form: prophetic, expansive, intoxicated with possibility. "Self-Reliance," "The Over-Soul," "Circles." These are the headwaters of American intellectual life. Every American essayist since is either following him or arguing with him.
The case against
Read in sequence, the essays expose the method: assertion without argument. Emerson announces, contradicts himself two pages on, and calls the contradiction proof of vitality. The Over-Soul asks you to swallow whole a mysticism Self-Reliance just finished telling you to question. Intoxicating in single shots; the prophetic register, sustained across a collection, becomes a sermon that never sits down.
Essays · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
