Resurrecting Emerson: An Investigation of Self-Reliance’s Presence in Society and Solitude by

Though many people believe that Ralph Waldo Emerson was a brilliant thinker, lecturer, and writer, there is a widespread notion among scholars that he abandoned his early philosophy during the latter stages of his life, casting a negative light on his legacy. Gertrude Reif Hughes summarizes this prevalent view as follows: “A commonplace of Emerson scholarship holds that the early voice of rhapsodic affirmation and challenge gave way, after the death of little Waldo in 1842 or the Mexican war of 1846, to a voice that is more skeptical, or resigned, or just plain tired” (ix). This belief that Emerson’s later work lacks his youth’s forcefulness serves as the impetus for this thesis, and I spend the bulk of the ensuing chapters evaluating the more specific argument among these critics that the older Emerson renounced the idealistic tenets of his early thought because of their impracticability. It is impossible to assess this consensus if I treat Emerson’s early philosophy as merely transcendental, a label that most scholars use to characterize his work. To avoid this problem, I approach my critique of Stephen E. Whicher and other scholars’ denunciations of Emerson’s later thought by focusing on one vital element of Emerson’s early philosophy: self-reliance. It is an idea that has received a lot attention in both mainstream and academic circles, and, more importantly, it is “the best single key to [Emerson’s] thought and influence” (Buell 59). In its most simple terms, self-reliance is an individual’s ability to think his or her own thoughts. An investigation of this idea’s presence, or lack thereof, in Emerson’s later work provides us with a means to evaluate the scholarly consensus’s assertion that Emerson deserts his early philosophy in the concluding phase of his life. For the purposes of this thesis, Emerson’s later philosophy is defined by the views that he sets forth in Society and Solitude, his last major work. By comparing Society and Solitude to Emerson’s early philosophy, I am able to ascertain the consistency of Emerson’s portrayal of self-reliance over the course of his life. However, before examining whether or not self-reliance pervades Society and Solitude, I define the term in the first chapter of my thesis. Essentially, I combine George Kateb’s conception of self-reliance, which asserts that it is a form of democratic individuality, with Randy L. Friedman’s and Whicher’s claims that the idea involves an inner religiousness. After defining self-reliance, the remainder of my thesis works closely with the essays in Society and Solitude and utilizes comparisons between these texts and Emerson’s early works in order to illustrate self-reliance’s presence in the book. In the second chapter, I focus on self-reliance’s permeation of the most concrete essays in Society and Solitude. Throughout this chapter, I demonstrate that these essays’ practical topics do not signal a desertion of self-reliance and instead show that self-reliance is a practicable idea. Subsequently, the third chapter explores Emerson’s infusion of self-reliance into Society and Solitude through abstractions and establishes that Emerson never renounced his “idealistic rhetoric” (Rowe 24). Finally, the conclusion contends that Emerson’s unwavering belief in selfreliance represents a commitment to idealism that counters George Fredrickson’s theory about the Civil War’s dimming effect on American thinkers and Emerson in particular. Overall, this examination of self-reliance’s presence in Society and Solitude reveals that Emerson’s later work does not abandon this idea, and, consequently, does not completely deviate from his early thought.