ABSTRACT

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) did not publish English Traits until 1856, by which time he was a well-established lecturer and writer. The leading figure in the Transcendental Society, Emerson’s views on human nature (as divine) and on the natural world (as mystically corresponding to the human mind) formed a religious framework for those in America. English Traits draws in its opening chapter on Emerson’s first visit to Europe, in 1833, soon after the death of his wife and his decisive break with his Unitarian background. Emerson made a point of meeting the writers he most admired: Walter Savage Landor, Coleridge (in the extract reproduced here), Carlyle and Wordsworth. Coleridge is for Emerson interesting only as a spectacle, as a way of satisfying curiosity; he is tactless in abusing Unitarianism, since Emerson was brought up as a Unitarian. When this is pointed out, Coleridge is unabashed and unapologetic.