On Emerson's Individualism

Abstract: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is an outstanding thinker, writer, poet and lecturer in the United States during nineteen century. As the creator of American transcendentalistic literature and the representative of American transcendentalistic movement, his transcendentalism was called as the most important mundane religion, and he was regarded as " the prophet of American consciousness" and "Confucius in the United States". Individualism, as the center of his transcendentalism, came into form under a certain economic, political and religion background, paying much more attention to the spirit, personal character, calling on self-reliance, influencing the religion, literature and culture in the United States a lot.Emerson's thought system is so great and complex that it is very hard to approach. In foreign countries most researchers just explore Emerson on his transcendentalism philosophy, but this thesis just inquires into the individualism from the complex thought, exploring the individualism's background, content and influence, hoping all readers can understand the individualism better on this point. Thus, the thesis provides a new angle for the research on EmersonThere are three main chapters in this thesis.Chapter one is talking about the background of Emerson's individualism, After American's Independent War, Economy developed so rapidly that it resulted in a lot of social problems which old thoughts can deal with, America is in deep need of a new thought to solve this new problems; Independence of the sovereignty, popularity of democracy in society and reforms of religions made a way for Emerson's individualism; That Emerson had master a lot of knowledge about European individualism, psychology in Asia and Romantic thoughts helps to make up a theoretical forms of a new thought.Chapter two is talking about Emerson's individualism content. Emerson's individualism is different from other individualism, just because it was based on transcendentalism, laying stress on the inner feeling, human being's individuality, regarding person's rights the most important, revolting against the interference from society and government, looking human being as high as God and call all the nation to escape from the limitation in all fields and rely on herself. The ideas on literature is escaping from literature authority, finding out the nation's own materials and styles, revealing human being's inner feeling. The ideas on religion is criticizing the religion, praising the soul and treating God as a spirituous guild for human being.Chapter three is telling us about the influence of Emerson's individualism in the fields of literature, religion and culture. Emerson's individualism led to the thoughts in these fields and at last resulted in the independence of American spirit.Emerson's individualism has an active effect on American during nineteen century, on one side, calling for people to live a simple life and pay less attention to money; on the other side, calling for people to rely on themselves, escaping form authorities and building up self-confidence. But every coin has two sides, individualism has its own limitation such as not depending on history, contradiction among the thoughts and easily resulting in extreme individualism. In modern time, in China, Emerson's individualism has its advantage: it can help Chinese escape form chasing for too much material enjoyment and the authority of economy, build up a socialism of our own.