Essays

[Footnote 500: Proteus. In Greek mythology, a sea god who had the power of assuming different shapes. If caught and held fast, however, he was forced to assume his own shape and answer the questions put to him.] [Footnote 501: Mosaic ... Schemes. The conception of the world as given in Genesis on which the law of Moses, the great Hebrew lawgiver, was founded.] [Footnote 502: Ptolemaic schemes. The system of geography and astronomy taught in the second century by Ptolemy of Alexandria; it was accepted till the sixteenth century, when the Copernican system was established. Ptolemy believed that the sun, planets, and stars revolve around the earth; Copernicus taught that the planets revolve around the sun.] [Footnote 503: Flora. In Roman mythology, the goddess of the spring and of flowers.] [Footnote 504: Fauna. In Roman mythology, the goddess of fields and shepherds; she represents the fruitfulness of the earth.] [Footnote 505: Ceres. The Roman goddess of grain and harvest, corresponding to the Greek goddess, Demeter.] [Footnote 506: Pomona. The Roman goddess of fruit trees and gardens.] [Footnote 507: All duly arrive. Emerson deducts from nature the doctrine of evolution. What is its teaching?] [Footnote 508: Plato. (See note 36.)] [Footnote 509: Himalaya Mountain chains. (See note 193.)] [Footnote 510: Franklin. Give an account of Benjamin Franklin, the famous American scientist and patriot. What did he prove about lightening?] [Footnote 511: Dalton. John Dalton was an English chemist who, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, perfected the atomic theory, that is, the theory that all chemical combinations take place in certain ways between the atoms, or ultimate particles, of bodies.] [Footnote 512: Davy. (See note 69.)] [Footnote 513: Black. Joseph Black, a Scotch chemist who made valuable discoveries about latent heat and carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid gas.] [Footnote 514: The astronomers said, etc. Beginning with this passage, several pages of this essay was published in 1844, under the title of _Tantalus_, in the next to the last number of _The Dial_, which Emerson edited.] [Footnote 515: Centrifugal, centripetal. Define these words.] [Footnote 516: Stoics. See "Stoicism," 331.] [Footnote 517: Luther. (See note 188.)] [Footnote 518: Jacob Behmen. A German mystic of the sixteenth century; his name is usually written Boehme.] [Footnote 519: George Fox. (See note 202.)] [Footnote 520: James Naylor. An English religious enthusiast of the seventeenth century; he was first a Puritan and later a Quaker.] [Footnote 521: Operose. Laborious.] [Footnote 522: Outskirt and far-off reflection, etc. Compare with this passage Emerson's poem, _The Forerunners_.] [Footnote 523: Oedipus. In Greek mythology, the King of Thebes who solved the riddle of the Sphinx, a fabled monster.] [Footnote 524: Prunella. A widely scattered plant, called self-heal, because a decoction of its leaves and stems was, and to some extent is, valued as an application to wounds. An editor comments on the fact that during the last years of Emerson's life "the little blue self-heal crept into the grass before his study window."] SHAKESPEARE; OR, THE POET [Footnote 525: Shakespeare; or the Poet is one of seven essays on great men in various walks of life, published in 1850 under the title of _Representative Men_. These essays were first delivered as lectures in Boston in the winter of 1845, and were repeated two years later before English audiences. They must have been especially interesting to those Englishmen who had, seven years before, heard Emerson's friend, Carlyle, deliver his six lectures on great men whom he selected as representative ones. These lectures were published under the title of _Heroes and Hero-Worship_. You should read the latter part of Carlyle's lecture on _The Hero as Poet_ and compare what he says about Shakespeare with Emerson's words. Both Emerson and Carlyle reverenced the great English poet as "the master of mankind." Even in serious New England, the plays of Shakespeare were found upon the bookshelf beside religious tracts and doctrinal treatises. There the boy Emerson found them and learned to love them, and the man Emerson loved them but the more. It was as a record of personal experiences that he wrote in his journal: "Shakespeare fills us with wonder the first time we approach him. We go away, and work and think, for years, and come again,--he astonishes us anew. Then, having drank deeply and saturated us with his genius, we lose sight of him for another period of years. By and by we return, and there he stands immeasurable as at first. We have grown wiser, but only that we should see him wiser than ever. He resembles a high mountain which the traveler sees in the morning and thinks he shall quickly near it and pass it and leave it behind. But he journeys all day till noon, till night. There still is the dim mountain close by him, having scarce altered its bearings since the morning light."] [Footnote 526: Genius. Here instead of speaking as in _Friendship_, see note 286, of the genius or spirit supposed to preside over each man's life, Emerson mentions the guardian spirit of human kind.] [Footnote 527: Shakespeare's youth, etc. It is impossible to appreciate or enjoy this essay without having some clear general information about the condition of the English people and English literature in the glorious Elizabethan age in which Shakespeare lived. Consult, for this information, some brief history of England and a comprehensive English literature.] [Footnote 528: Puritans. Strict Protestants who became so powerful in England that in the time of the Commonwealth they controlled the political and religious affairs of the country.] [Footnote 529: Anglican Church. The Established Church of England; the Episcopal church.] [Footnote 530: Punch. The chief character in a puppet show, hence the puppet show itself.] [Footnote 531: Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, etc. For an account of these dramatists consult a text book on English literature. The English drama seems to have begun in the Middle Ages with what were called Miracle plays, which were scenes from Bible history; about the same time were performed the Mystery plays, which dramatized the lives of saints. These were followed by the Moralities, plays in which were personified abstract virtues and vices. The first step in the creation of the regular drama was taken by Heywood, who composed some farcical plays called Interludes. The people of the sixteenth century were fond of pageants, shows in which classical personages were introduced, and Masques, which gradually developed from pageants into dramas accompanied with music. About the middle of the sixteenth century, rose the English drama,--comedy, tragedy, and historical plays. The chief among the group of dramatists who attained fame before Shakespeare began to write were Kyd, Marlowe, Greene, and Peele. Ben Jonson and Beaumont and Fletcher rank next to Shakespeare among his contemporaries, and among the other dramatists of the period were Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Ford, and Massinger.] [Footnote 532: At the time when, etc. Probably about 1585.] [Footnote 533: Tale of Troy. Drama founded on the Trojan war. The subject of famous poems by Latin and Greek poets.] [Footnote 534: Death of Julius Cæsar. An account of the plots which ended in the assassination of the great Roman general.] [Footnote 535: Plutarch. See note on _Heroism_(264). Shakespeare, like the earlier dramatists, drew freely on Plutarch's _Lives_ for material.] [Footnote 536: Brut. A poetical version of the legendary history of Britain, by Layamon. Its hero is Brutus, a mythical King of Britain.] [Footnote 537: Arthur. A British King of the sixth century, around whose life and deeds so many legends have grown up that some historians say he, too, was a myth. He is the center of the great cycle of romances told in prose in Mallory's _Morte d'Arthur_ and in poetry in Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_.] [Footnote 538: The royal Henries. Among the dramas popular in Shakespeare's day which he retouched or rewrote are the historical plays. Henry IV., First and Second Parts; Henry V; Henry VI., First, Second, and Third Parts; and Henry VIII.]