For discussion or writing. 1. Read Emerson’s essay closely, and then ask yourself how Emerson could logically condemn the “self-reliance” of a person such as Adolf Hitler

1. Read Emerson’s essay closely, and then ask yourself how Emerson could logically condemn the “self-reliance” of a person such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, or even some less dangerous egotist, such as an obvious bully in the local school. By what standards or criteria could Emerson validly criticize the actions or characters of such people?

2. The literary critic Yvor Winters commented negatively on “Self-Reliance” in his book titled In Defense of Reason. Track down that book, read its discussion of Emerson, and then explain whether or not you think Winters’s criticisms of Emerson seem fair or justified. How might Emerson defend himself against Winters’s charges?

3. Compare and contrast the ideas Emerson expresses in this essay with the ideas that underlie Whitman’s poem “The Song of Myself.” In what specific ways does Whitman seem to have been influenced by Emerson? Are there any significant differences between Whitman’s thinking in that poem and Emerson’s thinking in this essay?

4. Youth is an important concept in “Self-Reliance.” What does youth represent for Emerson? What favors youth over age?

5. Choose one of Emerson’s works—such as his essay on Plato in Representative Men, or his essay “The American Scholar”—and then use that work to help explicate another of his writings. In other words, how do the ideas, assumptions, and aspirations reflected in the chosen work help us understand another of Emerson’s texts? For instance, how was Emerson himself trying to live up to the standard he himself describes as being set by Plato? How was Emerson himself trying to be the kind of scholar he celebrates?

6. It has sometimes been said of Emerson that he wrote excellent sentences but that his paragraphs or longer passages are often erratic and incoherent. What do you think of this claim? hoose several paragraphs or pages from a particular work by Emerson, and discuss the ways in which that passage is organized. How does it develop logically? How does it flow rhythmically? How is it designed to move or persuade a reader?

7. Examine two different passages from two different prose works by Emerson. Choose one passage that you consider rhetorically effective and one passage that you consider rhetorically less effective. How do you explain the differences between the two passages? What particular elements make one passage powerful and the other less powerful? Discuss such matters as imagery, word choice, sentence length, sentence structure, and fi gurative language.

8. Consult a number of different reference sources—including encyclopedias, dictionaries of literary terms, and The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (available online)—and read their definitions and discussions of transcendentalism. Then choose one work by Emerson and discuss the degree to which (and the ways in which) it exemplifies transcendentalist ideas.

9. Read Emerson’s essay titled “The Poet, ” and then discuss the ways in which the essay seems relevant to several of his own poems. How does Emerson try to practice in his poems what he preaches in his essay? To what extent, and in what ways, does he succeed and/or fail?

10. Choose one of the titular topics of one of Emerson’s essays—such as “Love, ” “Friendship, ” “Prudence, ” “Art, ” or “Politics, ”—and then trace the appearance of that idea in the Essays as a whole. What consistencies and/or inconsistencies emerge in Emerson’s various discussions of the chosen topic?

11. Choose a particular year in Emerson’s adult life, and then try to track down as many different examples of Emerson’s writings from that year (such as poems, essays, lectures, notes, letters) as you can find. What historical events or conditions were important during the chosen year? How do Emerson’s writings from that year seem connected to those events or conditions?

12. Explore the history of Emerson’s reputation. During certain eras he has been highly praised, and during other eras he has been vigorously mocked or criticized. What kinds of factors seem to have influenced the praise and criticism he has received? Should a writer’s literary reputation be affected by whether a reader agrees or disagrees with the writer’s ideas?

13. Read an essay (such as the one in Myerson’s Historical Guide) that discusses various biographical treatments of Emerson’s life. How have biographers disagreed in their basic views of Emerson? How and why are their disagreements important in affecting the ways we read Emerson’s writings? Is biographical information about an author really important to an understanding of his literary works?

14. Read through Emerson’s Essays and then discuss his comments about women in particular and what it means to be female in general. (For instance, does he tend to describe nature in male or female terms?) What do his comments reveal about the status of women in his own society and era? Is there any consistency to his comments? Do his comments in any way suggest or reflect changes that may have been taking place in the role of women in his time? What were his explicit views about the rights and responsibilities of women?

15. Consider the uses of the ideas in Walden (such as civil disobedience) in the 20th and 21st centuries. What would be lost, what gained in American civilization if many people (many “Johns and Jonathans”) followed the precepts Thoreau articulates?

16. Make a list of the puns and wordplay within the book (Thoreau particularly has fun with place names, making up etymologies for them). What does such wordplay tell you about Thoreau’s view of language?

17. Many people have set portions of this book into lines of poetry. Select at least 14 lines from any chapter that you consider most poetic; how does isolating a section of the book like this—and the individual lines—make a difference in the impact of the passage?

18. Find passages in Emerson’s essays that you see repeated and/or lived out in Walden. How does Thoreau revise, develop, amplify, or simplify Emerson’s ideas?

19. Thoreau’s close relationship with Emerson has been well documented, and similarities between the two are often obvious. In what important ways are these two thinkers different? In what principles do their philosophies seem most at odds?

20. Explain how Thoreau’s treatment of women and immigrants throughout his work differs from Hawthorne’s treatment of them as characters in The Scarlet Letter.

21. What do Thoreau’s travel books reveal about transcendentalism? How are the ideas of transcendentalism expressed differently in Walden or “Civil Disobedience”?

22. Thoreau is sometimes called America’s first major nature writer. How did his work infl uence later nature writers, such as John Muir, Edward Abbey, and others?

23. An inspiration for political activists, “Civil Disobedience” has the potential to cause chaos as well as progress. Discuss the implications of Thoreau’s words and actions.

24. Today we know that this document has reached around the world; to whom does Thoreau seem to be speaking? What is his tone in most of the essay?

25. How do this essay and the action behind it represent the philosophical assumptions of the transcendental movement? Which Emerson speeches, for example, would you hold up as inspiration for it or parallel to it?