Emerson on Success

Author: Emerson
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: Most of Emerson's works are written in prose, with important works such as "Self-Reliance" and "The Over-Soul," collected in "Emerson on Success" (1841) and "On Success: Second Series" (1844). This work brought Emerson great fame, and his ideas were regarded as the core of Transcendentalism, while he himself was honored as the "Leader of the American Renaissance." Emerson's prose is distinctive, focusing on content rather than excessive ornamentation. His writing resembles aphorisms, with profound yet accessible philosophy, strong persuasion, and a typical "Emersonian style." Someone once remarked on his writing, "Emerson seemed to write only maxims." The temperament conveyed by his words is hard to describe: it is both authoritarian and open-minded; both aristocratic and democratic; both clear and often tinged with a touch of mysticism. Literary critic Lawrence Buell, in his biography "Emerson," said that Emerson and his philosophy were the most important secular religion in America.