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Nature's God: Emerson and the Greeks

Monash University, Peter.Murphy{at}arts.monash.edu.au

This article explores the mystical impulse in the American mind, reflected in the work of William James, Kenneth Burke, and most especially the case of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The parallels and differences between Emerson's mystical idea of Nature and the ancient Greek pre-Socratic idea of the universe as a union of opposites are explored. The divergence between the Americans and the Greeks concerning the idea of limits is reflected on. The optimism of the Americans is explained as a function of their mystical theodicy, and the greatness of their power as a function of their mystic ability, so well assayed by Emerson, to bear crushing paradoxes with a cheerful lightness of being.

Key Words: America • Kenneth Burke • Christianity • Deism • Ralph Waldo Emerson • God • Abraham Lincoln • mystic • nature • slavery • Stoic

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