| Professor Roger Lundin describes how Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays illuminate the contemporary disregard for nearly any source of authority other than the self. He studies what they reveal in his book From Nature to Experience: The American Search for Cultural Authority, the idea for which took shape as he recognized that the development in Emerson's writings mirrored a development in American life in the nineteenth century. Emerson (1803-1882), Lundin explains, was the first major writer in the American tradition who worked to discard all ties to historic Christian belief and practice. As he did so, he sought a source for moral authority first in nature and later in the individual's experience of life. Emerson's pilgrimage was similar to that of a handful of others during his time (many of whom were Protestants) who tried to maintain personal morality without sustaining the theological authority upon which it is built. |
From Nature to Experience: The American Search for Cultural Authority (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005) |
On the bonus track for Volume 79, Roger Lundin discusses the necessity of humility in the writing of biographies. Click