Vortex Emerson
Stanford Continuing Studies
LIT 225
Spring, 2014
Monday Evenings: 7:00 - 8:50 PM
Charles Junkerman
T: 650-723-6866
F: 650-725-4248
E: [email protected]
1. March 31: Welcome and Introduction
Buell, Emerson: Chapter 1 (1-58)
2. April 7: Self-Reliance: In Communication with the Internal Ocean
Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
Buell, Emerson: Chapter 2 (pp. 59 - 107)
Thoreau, The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau,
"Life Without Principle" (pp. 195-215)
In class: excerpts from Marcus Aurelius and Nietzsche
3. April 14: Nature, the Great Apparition, and Perfect Exhilaration
Emerson, Nature
John Elder introduction to Nature and "Walking"
4. April 21: Walking into the World
Thoreau, The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau:
Introduction by Lewis Hyde: "Prophetic Excursions" (sections I-III)
"Walking" (pp. 147-179)
"A Winter Walk" (pp.25-43)
Edward Abbey, excerpt from Desert Solitaire
In class: excerpts from Thoreau, Journal; Wordsworth "Intimations Ode"
5. April 28: The Only Teller of News
Emerson, "The Poet"
Excerpts from Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens
"Democratic Wonder" handout
6. May 5: "I am large . . . I contain multitudes"
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" (entire)
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7. May 12: Religious Radicalism, the Blowing Clover, and the Falling Rain
Emerson, "The Divinity School Address"
Buell, Emerson, Chapter 4: Religious Radicalisms (pp. 158-199)
William James, excerpts from Varieties of Religious Experience
In class: Excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita, Saadi, and Hafez
TBD: Potluck Dinner and Screening of Ansel Adams by Ric Burns (2002)
8. May 19: The Flying Perfect
Emerson, "Circles"
Buell, Emerson, Chapter 5: Emerson as Philosopher (pp. 199-242)
Richard Rorty, excerpts from Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
9. June 2: The Mid-World is Best
Emerson, "Experience"
Buell, Emerson, Chapter 3: Emersonian Poetics (pp. 107-158)
Excerpt from Montaigne
10. June 9: The Coffee Was Fragrant; Conscience Rolled on its Pillow
Emerson, "Emancipation in the British West Indies" (handout)
Thoreau, The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau,
"Slavery in Massachusetts" (pp. 179-195)
Buell, Emerson, Chapter 6: Social Thought and Reform (pp. 242-288)
Lewis Hyde, Introduction to The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau (sections IV-VII)
In class: Reading of the short play, "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" by
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
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Books: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson’s Poetry and Prose, ed. Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, Northion Critical edition, W.W. Norton, 2001, ISBN 0-­‐393-­‐96792-­‐1 (pbk), Lawrence Buell, Emerson, Harvard Belknap, 2004, ISBN-­‐10: 0674016270, Henry David Thoreau, The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau, ed. Lewis Hyde, North Point Press, 2002, ISBN-­‐10: 0865476462, Henry David Thoreau, The Heart of Thoreau’s Journals, ed. Odell Shepard, Dover, New York, 1961, ISBN 0-­‐486-­‐20741-­‐2, Walt Whitman, Song of Myself and Other Poems, Selected and editieed by Robert Haas, Counterpoint, 2011, ISBN-­‐10: 1582437114