More Thoughts on Emerson

I had written down so much to say about this essay that, now, I dont think 1000 words is all that much for one week, though I may be eating those very words soon. Anyways, I have moved onto Thoreau's Walden and Civil Disobedience in my other class. I can see how he, also, resembles a writer of the Romantic period with his attention to individuality and rejection of knowledge of the past. He goes on at length in the beginning of Walden about rejection the knowledge his forefathers try to pass down to him. He boldly asserts, "Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new." He is a firm advocate for doing while he is leery of reading, that is, reading someone else's ideas and thoughts.

Similarly, I see how Emerson warns against reading. He sees merit in reading for its "transcendental and extraordinary" purpose. He will read a man's papers if that man is so "inflamed and carried away by his own thought, to that degree that he forgets the authors and the public." But he will not read if it has no transitive value for himself. He rejects the "arguments, histories, and criticisms" in reading probably because they are just someone else's work from the past, they do nothing for him. I think Thoreau would feel the same about this quote.

What is interesting is that both authors quote past philosophers and authors numerous times within their work, and thats not to say they criticize them or put down their work. Rather, they praise their work and use it to back up their own. Thoreau quotes Confucius, Hypocrites, and Evelyn while Emerson quotes Plato, Pythagoras, and the actions of the Greek god Pan, to name a few. I don't know if this makes both authors hypocritical in such a way as to discount their work or if it was fairly common to contradict one's self when they were alive and writing these things. Should we view these kinds of writers as credible voices from the past? Are they all we have to gage what are history is like through the medium of literature?