Emerson And American Individualism

Individualism lies at the very core of American culture. It has come to mean so many things and to contain such contradictions and paradoxes that even to define it requires that we analyze it critically, that we consider especially those tendencies that would destroy it from within. Modern individualism emerged out of the struggle against monarchical and aristocratic authority that seemed arbitrary and oppressive to citizens prepared to assert the rights to govern themselves. Having long coexisted with classical republicanism and Biblical religion, modern individualism seems to be producing a way of life that is neither individually nor socially viable, yet to Americans, a return to traditional forms would be to return to intolerable discrimination and oppression.Ralph Walo Emerson's reputation has never been as unshakable as it is today. He is a great spokesman of individualism and self-reliance as well as the leader of Transcendentalism. He is viewed as the progenitor of a line of progmatism in American intellectual life that was filtered through William James because of the individualism he advocated is fully based on self-reliance, personality and holy indivuduality. With the deep and continuing theme that the individuality represents entirety in American individualism, Emersonian individualism serves as a link between past and future in the course of American individualism transformation.PartⅠ(ChapterⅠ-Ⅱ) Studies the semantic history of individualism and displays its recent research tendency home and abroad.PartⅡ(ChapterⅢ-Ⅳ) Offers the historic origins of American individualism-three leading views of the individual in the revolutionary era and the historic background of Emersonian Transcendentalist individualismPartⅢ(ChapterⅤ-Ⅶ) Provides an Emerson—the mind on fire, and his Transcendentalist individualism based on self-reliance and individuality.PartⅣ(ChapterⅧ-Ⅸ) Leads to the climax of this dissertation, pondering on the man as an individual upon a thorough reflection on American individualism.