L01 The American Scholar.pptVIP

美国文学选读 主讲：李世存 The Last of the Mohicans 最后的摩根战士 Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882) Life Born in Boston on May 25, 1803 in a clergyman’s family. Main works The American Scholar (1837) 美国学者》 Self-Reliance (1841)《论自助》 Influence The prophet of his age, Emerson embodied a new nation’s desire and struggle to assert its own identity in its formative period. About The American Scholar On August 31, 1837, Emerson was invited to give the annual oration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard. Those who were present have described the mixture of enthusiasm and consternation, wonder and grim silence evident in the large audience. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote of it, “This grand oration was our Intellectual Declaration of Independence.” The American Scholar (1837) The text begins with an introduction in which Emerson explains that his intent is to explore the scholar as one function of the whole human being: The scholar is “Man Thinking.” The remainder of the essay is organized into four sections, the first three discussing the influence of nature, the influence of the past and books, and the influence of action on the education of the thinking man. In the last section, Emerson considers the duties of the scholar and then discusses his views of America in his own time. The American Scholar (excerpt) Mr. President and Gentlemen, I greet you on the re-commencement of our literary year. Our anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do not meet for games of strength or skill, for the recitation of histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours; nor for the advancement of science, like our contemporaries in the British and European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more. As such it is precious as the sign of an indestructible instinct. The American Scholar (excerpt) Perhaps