Emerson American Jacob Jacob becomes Israel He who
Emerson: American Jacob
Jacob becomes Israel: He who strove with God—and triumphed.
Jacob the Wrestler Genesis 32: 24 -29
Gustave Doré, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1855
Gustave Moreau, “Jacob and the Angel, ” c. 1878
Walter O. Mayo (1878 -1970), Jacob and the Angel
N. C. Wyeth, the Battle of Glen Falls
Gauguin, The Vision after the Sermon, 1888
Thomas Blackshear, “Watchers in the Night”
Thomas Blackshear, “Forgiven” triumph through surrender
R. W. Emerson: American Jacob 1803 -1882
Father and Son: William and R. W. Emerson
Born into a Calling New England Divines—and RWE
Divinity Hall, Harvard (1826) the call resisted
Emerson as “Transparent Eyeball”: a caricature by Christopher Pearce Cranch See Norton, p. 488
Nature (1836): s The breakout book. . s The foregoing generation beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?
The Emerson Circle: Some Key Figures l Emerson’s Home in Concord, MA
Henry D. Thoreau, 1817 -1862 author of “Civil Disobedience” and Walden
“I saw the tree, but I did not realize it. ” —Elizabeth Peabody (attr. ), 1804 -1894
Sarah Margaret Fuller, 1810 -1850
Jones Very, 1813 -1880
Radical Politics, Radical Religion Founding New Institutions on Old Books
The Invented Republic
Liberty Tree Flags
A contemporary maypole. .
The Second Great Awakening: American Religion as Folk Poetry
The Cane Ridge Revival, 1801
Thomas Blackshear, “Watchers in the Night”
Thomas Blackshear, “Forgiven” triumph through surrender
The Invented Kingdom • the Bible as blueprint. .
That was then. . • the Great Bible of 1539. .
That was then. . • and the Authorised or King James version, 1611. .
This is now! • The First Bible of the New Republic • The severed link to the church
Spirit-led religion
Joseph Smith: A Back-Country Emerson?
Charlatans (from Emerson’s Notebook, c. 1854) • • P. T. Barnum Louis Napoleon Frederick Douglass Joe Smith
Emerson the Supplanter Christians, Stoics, & Fatalists
Cosmopolitanism § Overcoming by Relativizing § Liberation through comparison
From Emerson, “Fate”: Savages cling to a local god. . The broad ethics of Jesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an election or favoritism.
Translations
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