American Classics PDF EPUB Audio

Representative Men

First published: 1850
Pages: 136

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01: I: The Uses of Great Men
51:26
02: II: Plato, Or The Philosopher
64:25
03: II: Plato, New Readings
16:12
04: III: Swedenborg, Or The Mystic
84:36
05: IV: Montaigne, Or, The Skeptic (Part 1)
30:14
06: IV: Montaigne, Or, The Skeptic (Part 2)
29:44
07: V: Shakspeare, Or, The Poet
47:09
08: VI: Napoleon, Or, The Man of the World
54:56
09: VII: Goethe, Or, The Writer
46:29

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About this book

Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered these seven lectures in the late 1840s and published them in 1850, offering his own answer to Carlyle's cult of the hero. Rather than worship great men, Emerson treats them as representatives of human possibility, each embodying a quality the rest of us carry in smaller measure. He takes up Plato the philosopher, Swedenborg the mystic, Montaigne the skeptic, Shakespeare the poet, Napoleon the man of the world, and Goethe the writer, weighing what each achieved and where each fell short. The essays distill his conviction that genius belongs to everyone, and that we read a great life mainly to find ourselves reflected in it. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.

About the author

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity.