Emerson and Whitman on Individualism
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Americans have long prided themselves on their individualism and on the way individualism is protected by their Constitution and promoted by their culture. Different ideas of individualism are embodied in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose individualism was both socially acceptable and aligned with the larger philosophy of transcendentalism, and that of Walt Whitman, which retains an aura of being somewhat self-absorbed and at the same time somewhat socially suspect. Both writers, however, are celebrating in their own way the American belief in personal ability and self-worth, embodied by Emerson in his idea of self-reliance and by Whitman in his analysis of himself as an example of Everyman. Ralph Waldo Emerson expresses his philosophy in essays and poems extolling the virtues of nature, elevating the concept of self-reliance, and showing a dedication to mystical beliefs in the interconnectedness of human life with nature. Self-reliance is an American virtue that Emerson describes at length in his writings, including in an essay titled "Self-Reliance" and a poem with the same name. Emerson was a transcendentalist with a particular view of how human beings could commune with nature and who they were to turn inward to seek strength from themselves. He makes clear in the essay "Self-Reliance" what he means by the term and how he sees this as a major virtue for human life when he cites some verse offering the following advice: "To believe your own thought, to believ
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ntribution, if only each individual would listen to that voice that exists within:
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of our contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being (1046).
Of course, this view of self-reliance has a corollary in that the person who does listen to his or her own heart is not heeding the heart as an isolated entity but is instead hearing the voice of the Oversoul. The important ideas, our reality and the reality of the world, is simply out there and is something the thoughtful person is able to tap into and draw from, and what Emerson wants is for us to trust when we have made that connection and to know that our own efforts are as worthy as anyone else's in finding this connection between ourselves and the oneness of the universe. Emerson believed in the unity of all life and so could not believe that all history could be explained and understood in terms of the individual exper
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Approximate Word count = 2513
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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