Essays: First Series is a series of essays written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1841, concerning transcendentalism.
The book contains:
Many noted the influence of Thomas Carlyle. An anonymous English reviewer voiced the mainstream view when he wrote that the author of the book "out-Carlyles Carlyle himself," "imitat[ing] his inflations, his verbiage, his Germanico-Kantian abstractions, his metaphysics and mysticism." [1] Jane Welsh Carlyle agreed, giving her impression in a letter to John Sterling: "I find him getting affected, stilted, mystical, and in short 'a considerable of a bore' A bad immitation [sic] of Carlyle's most Carlylish translations of Goethes [sic] most Goetheish passages!" [2] For his part, Sterling described them to William Coningham as "the only book of any pith and significance that has dawned here lately . . . which at a glance, seem far ahead in compass and brilliancy of almost everything England has of late years (generations) produced". [3]
Three fragments from the essay "Spiritual Laws" form the backbone of composer Kaija Saariaho's True Fire for baritone and orchestra (2014), a piece of music that collages texts from various sources. The piece's title is taken from the essay's final sentence, that concludes also the setting: "We know the authentic effects of the true fire through every one of its million disguises." [4]
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, 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. Friedrich Nietzsche thought he was "the most gifted of the Americans,” and Walt Whitman called him his "master.”
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher from the Scottish Lowlands. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature, and philosophy.
Robert Baillie was a Church of Scotland minister who became famous as an author and a propagandist for the Covenanters.
Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to Florence Nightingale. He was the brother of suffragist Anne Clough and father of Blanche Athena Clough, who both became principals of Newnham College, Cambridge.
John Sterling was a Scottish author.
Kaija Anneli Saariaho was a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, the Salzburg Music Festival, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Finnish National Opera, among others. In a 2019 composers' poll by BBC Music Magazine, Saariaho was ranked the greatest living composer.
Edward Sterling was a British journalist.
Francis William Newman was an English classical scholar and moral philosopher, prolific miscellaneous writer and activist for vegetarianism and other causes.
Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books is an 1831 novel by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, first published as a serial in Fraser's Magazine in November 1833 – August 1834. The novel purports to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, author of a tome entitled Clothes: Their Origin and Influence. Teufelsdröckh's Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a sceptical English Reviewer who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher. The work is, in part, a parody of Hegel, and of German Idealism more generally.
"The Over-Soul" is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson first published in 1841. With the human soul as its overriding subject, several general themes are treated: (1) the existence and nature of the human soul; (2) the relationship between the soul and the personal ego; (3) the relationship of one human soul to another; and (4) the relationship of the human soul to God. The influence of Eastern religions, including Vedanta, is plainly evident, but the essay also develops ideas long present in the Western philosophical canon and the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Jane Baillie Carlyle was a Scottish writer and the wife of Thomas Carlyle.
Colonel Sir Anthony Coningham Sterling KCB was a British Army officer and historian, author of The Highland Brigade in the Crimea.
William Coningham was a British Liberal politician and art collector.
History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great is a biography of Friedrich II of Prussia by Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. It was first published in six volumes from 1858 to 1865.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays is the title of a collection of reprinted reviews and other magazine pieces by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle. Along with Sartor Resartus and The French Revolution it was one of the books that made his name. Its subject matter ranges from literary criticism to biography, history and social commentary. These essays have been described as "Intriguing in their own right as specimens of graphic and original nonfiction prose…indispensable for understanding the development of Carlyle's mind and literary career", and the scholar Angus Ross has noted that the review-form displays in the highest degree Carlyle's "discursiveness, allusiveness, argumentativeness, and his sense of playing the prophet's part."
True Fire is a song cycle for solo baritone and orchestra by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, on a libretto collaged from multiple sources by dramaturg Aleksi Barrière. The work was jointly commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France. It was first performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on May 14, 2015, by the baritone Gerald Finley and Los Angeles Philharmonic under the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The piece is dedicated to Gerald Finley.
Reminiscences is a book by historian and social critic Thomas Carlyle, posthumously published in 1881, which contains two lengthy memoirs of the author's wife, Jane Welsh Carlyle, and friend Edward Irving, together with shorter essays on his father and some of the literary friends of his youth. The book's emphasis primarily rests on Carlyle's relationship with the subjects. The book was begun in 1832 but mainly written in the year following Jane Carlyle's death, in April 1866. Many of its first readers were shocked by the impression it gave of a harsh, gloomy, censorious personality and of a man racked by remorse over his failings as a husband; it did Carlyle's reputation as the sage and prophet of the Victorian era lasting harm. Nevertheless, it is characterized by great vividness and accuracy of detail, and by a comparatively direct, conversational style, and has been called an autobiographical masterpiece.
The Carlyle–Emerson correspondence is a series of letters written between Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) from 14 May 1834 to 20 June 1873. It has been called "one of the classic documents of nineteenth-century literature."
Thomas Carlyle published numerous works, and many more have been written about him by other authors.