Reading Response Prompts
 

These prompts are meant to get you thinking about what you have read, and to help focus your thoughts for your reading responses. You can respond to any one of them, or, if you have another idea you would rather explore, you are free to write about that instead. Do not, however, attempt to answer multiple prompts for any assignment. If you choose to pursue an idea of your own or are not writing a response that day, you should still spend at least a few minutes thinking about each of the prompts in preparation for class. For more information, review the listserv assignment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “An Address Delivered Before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, 15 July, 1838,” “The Over-Soul,” “The Poet,” letter to Walt Whitman, 21st July, 1855; Walt Whitma, 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass

The so-called “Divinity School Address” inspired considerable protest from contemporary religious leaders. As the note tells you, after Emerson delivered it, Harvard did not invite him back for almost thirty years. What about it would they have found offensive?  What is Emerson’s view of religion in general as it is commonly practiced?  How does he view Christ and Christianity?  Which elements of Christianity does he admire and which does he wish people to discard?

“The Over-Soul” is another profoundly optimistic essay, in part because of what it says about the universality and accessibility of the divine.  But it must be said that the view of God Emerson presents here is not universally shared.  What is the downside of Emerson’s “Over-Soul”?  Why might some people reject this view of God?

Emerson, like Aristotle, clearly thinks highly of poets.  Why?  What are some of the things his essay “The Poet” claims poets do for us?

Including a preface to Leaves of Grass was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Whitman wrote and added it hastily to the volume when he discovered the volume had room for it; he needed to fill the space somehow. Yet it still reflects a supreme level of ambition.  What is Whitman trying to — and claiming to — accomplish by publishing Leaves of Grass?

In 1844, Emerson writes “The Poet”; eleven years later, Walt Whitman publishes the first edition of Leaves of Grass and immediately sends Emerson (whom he had never me) a copy. In what ways does this preface respond to Emerson’s essay, or to other Emerson essays? Consider Emerson’s reaction to Whitman, as reflected in the letter Emerson sends him the same month. What does Emerson’s response tell us about Leaves of Grass or Whitman? Does anything Emerson says surprise you?
 
|
|
|