Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Jennifer wrote: "I think it is safe to say that both Emerson and Thoreau come from social class background that would allow the kind of time it takes to not only become fully immersed in philosophical thoughts about what self-reliance and authenticity are but to also have the time to write about it in detail."

That's a very good point -- which you could add to the point that universal literacy is still a fairly recent development, so not only do many working people not have time for writing, they may not have had much education or even become literate, and they didn't have the leisure time as children to do the reading that is the background for much philosophical thinking. (Milton took several years just to read everything of importance in his time.) And it would have been harder for working people to have the contacts to get their writing published.

Still, I'm sure there were some working class people who also were published writers (the slave narratives of the US are certainly one such example.) Dickens certainly came out of an impoverished background, and Trollope worked all his life (though in a government, not laboring, job) and wrote in odd moments, on trains, in the early morning, etc.

But there have been some p

Patrice wrote: "I must be of a different generation but in my experience men generally do not do much around the house.

In general, isn't it the leisure class that writes?
"

This calls to mind a college seminar on Pride and Prejudice where an indignant student pointed out somewhat forcefully that "these people don't have jobs!" After a long pause the seminar leader said with a sigh, "Yes. These people do not have jobs."

Speaking of housework, I have to attend to my weekend chores now. I think I like your generation better, Patrice.

Patrice wrote: "I must be of a different generation but in my experience men generally do not do much around the house."

My wife makes sure I'm the exception to your experience.

Here I am to add my few small stones to the edifice. Speaking to the "footprints" paragraph, the one which begins "And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid . . .", I believe Emerson is speaking of the moment of creativity, of vision, and not of everyday life. There is that moment when it's just you and the stone and chisel, you and the pen and paper, you and the paints, brush and canvas. What you have learned of your craft from others is in you, for sure, and if you were to make a speech or write a dedication, you would certainly acknowledge that. In the moment of creativity, though, it is all about your own power to make from your own abilities, not to copy someone else. That, I think, is what Emerson means by "from man, not to man." You take what you've learned from others, plus your own abilities, and make something new.

I note how patriarchal Emerson is in his presentation. What he is writing about is available to few women at all, even in the leisure class. I agree with, and have learned from, what others have said about the working class, literacy, etc. I am sure Emerson did not wash diapers, cook meals, or make beds. But then as more people, at least in the West, have more leisure time, I think more people are free to take up ideas such as Emerson's in this essay.

I was discussing this essay with someone who thought that what Emerson was saying about charity (Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did today, of my obligation . . .), was about the industrialisation of charity, of the rise of the idea that one can give a dollar and think no more of poverty. I present this as food for thought, as it certainly is for me.

Finally, what should perhaps have been first, this is my first reading of Emerson at all. I think too, as someone else posted, that other of his work will round out his ideas more. For myself, I find much of this essay stimulating, and even validating of the life of the mind, the internal life, in and for itself. To live a balance between practical demands and the bringing to life of inner realities has long been my concern in my own life.

Peregrine wrote: "Finally, what should perhaps have been first, this is my first reading of Emerson at all. "

That's one of the things I love about this group. It's a great combination of first time readers of these books, and those who may have read them several times (or more, such as Zeke's experience with Emerson and Thoreau). The combination of first and fresh impressions and more experience with the ideas is a really neat combination, and makes for much more vigorous and interesting discussions than would be the case with all new or all multiple-time readers.

Jennifer wrote: "I think it is safe to say that both Emerson and Thoreau come from social class background that would allow the kind of time it takes to not only become fully immersed in philosophical thoughts about what self-reliance and authenticity are but to also have the time to write about it in detail."

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s childhood and youth were spent quite close to poverty. His minister father died when he was eight years old. The family was too poor for dancing or horseback riding and he never had a sled.

He only became “comfortable” after his beloved young wife Ellen died and he won a dispute with her family over the dowry she brought to the short lived marriage. (It is touching that his second wife, Lidian, insisted on naming their daughter Ellen, after Emerson’s lost love.) Despite the nest egg, Emerson still needed the income from his lecture tours. Well into his decline from the early stages of his Alzheimer’s disease, Ellen would travel with him and assist him as he attempted to read his notes.

He was a benefactor not only to Thoreau, but to others of the Concord group. It was Emerson’s money that supported the feckless genius of Bronson Alcott and kept the Alcott family afloat until income from Louisa May’s writing finally made them secure.

Although the atmosphere around the transcendentalists was somewhat detached from the realities of life for most people, they were not “ivory tower” intellectuals. In their day, the Lyceum lectures were avidly attended by the public and the idea of community betterment and education were widely embraced. In my opinion, the transcendentalists were not “speaking down” to anyone; if anything, the public was better equipped to respond to serious intellectual arguments than our entertainment culture is today.

Thoreau’s family was not well off at all. His mother took boarders into their Concord home to help make ends meet. The family business was making pencils. Thanks to Henry’s innovation they developed a way to pour the lead graphite into a pencil mold rather than gluing two pieces of wood together. This brought them some success. The exposure to lead also probably contributed to Henry’s death from Tuberculosis.

For their tenth reunion, the Harvard class of 1837 was asked to share information about their professions. After insisting that he feels little class spirit and has almost forgotten his four years at Harvard, Thoreau continues: “It is not one but legion, I will give you some of the monster’s heads. I am a schoolmaster—a private Tutor, a Surveyor—a Gardener, a Farmer—a Painter, I mean a House Painter, a Carpenter, a Mason, a Day-Laborer, a Pencil Maker, a Glass-paper Maker, a Writer, and sometimes a Poetaster. “

Hardly endeavors that kept him insulated from working men.

His real vocation is to discover what is essential in life. The introductory pages of the first chapter of Walden (“Economy”), before he begins his narrative, are a scathing commentary on the division of labor and consumerism. “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensible, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

Later, he admires the labor of a neighbor he observes moving a heavy boulder—until he discovers that the labor was performed in the employ of a wealthy landowner who is using the boulder as a decorative ornament to his lawn.”

He wants to find a way to free himself as much as possible from dependence on things: “Men have become the tools of their tools.” The one thing he wants to hoard is freedom; the freedom, dare I say it, to be Self-Reliant. He says, “…the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

I have no quarrel with the assertion that women disproportionately focused on domestic matters, freeing the men to pursue their esoteric philosophizing. While at the extreme, the suffering of his wife during Bronson Alcott’s attempt to create a utopian community at Fruitlands is truly harrowing. It is also devastatingly described in Louisa May’s Transcendental Wild Oats.

One example: Having excluded not only animal products (and animal labor, Alcott (and his partner, Charles Lane) also banned salt, cane sugar, spices, coffee and tea. Of her young girl’s observations of her mother’s futile struggle to feed the group, Louisa later wrote that no beast was sacrificed on the domestic altar but “only a brave woman’s taste, time and temper.”

However, it is important to also note the influence of strong, independent women on Emerson and the movement. His father’s sister Mary Moody Emerson was an outspoken and eccentric character who maintained correspondence with him until her death in 1863. He copied out the best of her communication into indexed notebooks of 870 pages.

The brash feminist Margaret Fuller described herself thus to Emerson: “I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.” Even in the privacy of his journal he didn’t take issue. He supported her work and when she, her husband and child were killed in a shipwreck off the coast of Long Island, dispatched Thoreau to the site in what proved an unsuccessful effort to recover their bodies or papers.

Another formidable, female intellect in the transcendental circle was Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. She was an educator, publisher and ran the West Street bookstore in Boston which hosted conversations for women that are 19th century precursors to what the Women’s Lib movement of the 1970s called “consciousness raising sessions.”

A member of this circle of strong women was an ardent reformer named Lydia Maria Child. She was active not only as an abolitionist, but in the women’s rights and Indian rights movements. I hope to learn more about her in the future.

A side note, to conclude, on domestic affairs. Touring the Emerson house in Concord, I learned the origin of the phrase, “sleep tight.” It turns out that 19th century mattresses lay atop a lattice of ropes (as opposed to springs). At the foot of the bed was a crank, which was turned to pull the ropes taut. Hence, “sleep tight.”

Zeke wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "I think it is safe to say that both Emerson and Thoreau come from social class background that would allow the kind of time it takes to not only become fully immersed in philosophi..."

Invigorating and useful, Zeke. Thanks.

Zeke wrote: "Ralph Waldo Emerson’s childhood and youth were spent quite close to poverty. His minister father died when he was eight years old. The family was too poor for dancing or horseback riding and he never had a sled...Thoreau’s family was not well off at all. His mother took boarders into their Concord home to help make ends meet. The family business was making pencils..."

I see what you're saying, Zeke, but I don't think that answers the primary point that Jennifer was raising. A minister's son might not have much money, but at the same time it's not a laboring life -- presumably his father was educated, and there were probably books in the house and encouragement of reading. And one who owns a business and has a large enough house to take in boarders isn't of the laboring class, either. Thoreau may have held various jobs, but some presumably by choice not necessity, since with a Harvard education even in those days he would have had opportunities open to him.

I think Jennifer's point was more that of true laboring class people -- miners, foresters, sailors, carpenters, men (almost always) whose physical labor drained virtually all their resources by the end of the work day, and who were put out to labor early in life rather than having the opportunity for schooling and college.

Zeke, thank you for all the interesting background info on Emerson and Thoreau It makes their works that much more interesting for me.

Very valid points Everyman. I was mostly trying to provide some context since I have the benefit of knowing some of the history. I think that Thoreau, especially, was questioning the value of what we call labor; why work to enrich someone else? Better to lessen your own "needs" and live life more fully. And I agree that such a position is easier to take when one's belly is not growling.

Everyman, #146: We should read Germinal by Émile Zola. I read that book when I was 18, over 30 years ago, and it has never left me.

Zeke wrote: "Very valid points Everyman. I was mostly trying to provide some context since I have the benefit of knowing some of the history. I think that Thoreau, especially, was questioning the value of what we call labor; why work to enrich someone else? Better to lessen your own "needs" and live life more fully. And I agree that such a position is easier to take when one's belly is not growling."

And I did enjoy and appreciate the additional background on Emerson and Thoreau. Despite all the reading I have done in 18th and 19th century authors, it's hard for me really to put myself into the lives of the people living there.

A wee bit off topic, but maybe not much, there was a show on PBS a few years back that I think was called "Manor House." It tried to replicate the lives of the masters and servants of a manor house in London in I think the late 19th century (later than Emerson and Thoreau but perhaps not all that different a time for the human condition). The "family" and the servants were all volunteers who were coached in their tasks, using domestic instruction books of the time. There were two points I took from it. One was the vast disparity in lifestyles between the family and the lower servants. The upper servants didn't have it all that bad -- the governess, housekeeper, cook, and butler. But the maids, the scullery maid, the boot boy, etc. had total abysmal lives, working long, long hours at heavy work, making virtually no money, almost no time off, just awful lives. The young woman who played the scullery maid quit because she just couldn't take the hours of backbreaking work. We think today of laborers as workers with minimum wage protections, workplace safety laws, unemployment insurance, prohibitions against employer violence, and all sorts of other protections. There were none of those back then.

Maybe this is more off topic than I had thought, but it struck me that when we think of laboring and working classes, we really have very little idea (and the idealized PBS book adaptations don't help) what life for the laboring classes was really like in the 17th to 19th centuries.

Peregrine wrote: "Everyman, #146: We should read Germinal by Émile Zola. I read that book when I was 18, over 30 years ago, and it has never left me."

If it comes up in our random selection rotation, we'll certainly have a chance to vote on it. There are so many, many great books we all want to read!

Everyman wrote: "I think Jennifer's point was more that of true laboring class people -- miners, foresters, sailors, carpenters, men (almost always) whose physical labor drained virtually all their resources by the end of the work day, and who were put out to labor early in life rather than having the opportunity for schooling and college."

------------------------------------------------------

That is exactly what I meant, Everyman, but I do think Zeke shares some valuable information that helps shed some light on Emerson’s and Thoreau’s socioeconomic backgrounds. Neither man is quite the “ivory tower intellectual” that I may have pegged them out to be.

I used the fact that both men attended Harvard in my determination of class background. When I say working class people I mean people who live pay check to pay check and at times go without one or more things that most people consider life essentials, people who don’t generally have a chance to seek higher education.

Everyman wrote: "Peregrine wrote: "Everyman, #146: We should read Germinal by Émile Zola. I read that book when I was 18, over 30 years ago, and it has never left me."

If it comes up in ..."

What I meant only was: Here's a book that shows working class the way you describe them in your post.

Patrice wrote: "Just want to say that this is an incredible group and I'm going to miss you!

Where are you going?

And I imagine life was similarly hard for those in the peasant and subsistance farmer classes in those centuries, as well as earlier.

Patrice wrote: "Sorry, I'm not going anywhere! My class starts this week. I'll be reading Thucydides and Plato for the next several months so I'll have to miss Les Mis."
------------------------------------------------------

That’s too bad (that you will miss Les Mis) because you have such a unique voice. Your class will be lucky to have you!

Zeke wrote: A member of this circle of strong women was an ardent reformer named Lydia Maria Child. She was active not only as an abolitionist, but in the women’s rights and Indian rights movements. I hope to learn more about her in the future.

Thanks Zeke for all the info -- most interesting. I will look at Child's writings. I have (as my grandmother would say) "Indian blood in my veins" and have been documenting our family's oral stories. Thanks.

Carol--You may be interested in the letters Emerson wrote to the President about the Indian removal. The best place to look is at www.rwe.org where they have his writing online. I quoted a bit from one in an earlier post; they are quite eloquent.

Also, not that it is pertinent to your research, you may be interested to know that Thoreau had an interesting relationship to Indians. He kind of idealized them which, according to one presentation I heard recently, arguably, inhibited him from being as ardent for their rights as he was about slaves.

On his trips to Maine he met an Indian guide who influenced him deeply.