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Representative Men: Seven Lectures

Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Essays
  • Book language: English
  • 137 pages

Representative Men: Seven Lectures is a collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It explores how great individuals embody human potential, with lectures on figures such as Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe. Listeners can enjoy Emerson’s reflections on genius, character, and the role of exemplary lives in culture.

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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

REPRESENTATIVE MEN
SEVEN LECTURES
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
CONTENTS
I. USES OF GREAT MEN.
It is natural to believe in great men. If the companions
of our childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their
condition regal, it would not surprise us. All mythology
opens with demigods, and the circumstance is high and
poetic; that is, their genius is paramount. In the legends
of the Gautama, the first men ate the earth, and found it
deliciously sweet.

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Contents

  1. REPRESENTATIVE MEN
  2. SEVEN LECTURES
  3. I. USES OF GREAT MEN.
  4. II. PLATO; OR, THE PHILOSOPHER.
  5. III. SWEDENBORG; OR, THE MYSTIC.
  6. IV. MONTAIGNE; OR, THE SKEPTIC.
  7. V. SHAKSPEARE; OR, THE POET.
  8. VI. NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD.
  9. VII. GOETHE; OR, THE WRITER
  10. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

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