[Cicero]

Well, I have to agree with you about Emerson. I took a graduate seminar at Harvard on the American Renaissance with a famous visiting scholar. As it turned out, there were only two of us in the class, which was a kind of tutorial.

Anyway, it was supposed to be on Melville, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Whitman, and Emerson, but the other student and I revolted and said we'd gladly read more of the others but we drew the line at Emerson! Fortunately the professor agreed. Emerson was a major influence on our country, but mostly malign, IMHO. He reminds me of everything about Harvard that I like least.

[sangrila]

I like Emerson actually. Thoreau drove me up a wall though with his lists of how many potatoes and carrots he was growing, and how much money he spent on shoelaces in a year. His writing is basically a boring diary mixed with regurgitated Emerson.

[AnAmericanMother]

We had Emerson sussed back in 1974. (I think most of his contemporaries figured it out a long time before that. < g >)

I like old Bronson Alcott better. Crazy as a hoot owl, but much less stuck on himself than Ralph Waldo. Still glad I didn't have to rely on him for my daily bread, though -- a slender reed. Poor Louisa!