Ralph Waldo Emerson published a collection titled simply Essays: First Series in 1841. The book was comprised of a dozen essays and set the template for Emerson’s preference in book-length publications to come with its structure composed of various smaller works rather than an intensive non-fictional exploration of a single concept of subject. Among the subjects covers in this publication are “Intellect,” Heroism,” and “Spiritual Laws.” As might be expected, Emerson’s Transcendentalist philosophical approach to such large-scale human concerns was met with controversy in some quarters, but this only proved—as is usually the case—to enlarge his readership rather than shrink it. Indeed, Essays: First Series did much to establish Emerson’s reputation which at the time was limited primarily to a few individual poems as his groundbreaking essay, “Nature.”
Oddly, perhaps, it is French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte who is the singularly strongest influence over Emerson’s philosophical approach to history in this essay. From Napoleon’s observation that history is nothing more than a fable which society has agreed upon, Emerson proceeds to build his case in the essay that history is the unceasing story of the search sameness between epochs as a way toward building self-identity through the universal mind of the collective which is capable of making an infinite number of associations between like things so that they can continue to be replicated as—admittedly inferior—copies.
This is the fundamental approach of Transcendentalist ideology: the paradox that all individuals can find meaning in the same sets of universal facts and experiences shared throughout human history. The idea of history written large recurring and recycling in the individual experience is even made distinctly literal by comparison the self-centered obsession with youth and beauty and the body to ancient Greek civilization’s artistic obsession with replicating the perfection of the human body in sculpture.
The disconnected quality of the essay may be a bit jarring as it seems to leap from one conceptualized theme to another without much in the way of bridging one to the next (for instance, the leap from the section about Gothic churches to the sudden introduction of the historical significance of Nomadism and Agriculture) but it is important to realize that this work was not conceived or composed as a self-contained essay, but rather evolved from a series of philosophical lectures conducted by Emerson in the wake of giving up his Unitarian ministry arising from increasing differences of opinion with the church leadership. Ultimately, however, this jarring structure works to the essay’s advantage by seeming to replicate the cyclical nature of history itself which moves forward in staccato rhythm. Thus, the form of “History” actually comes to represent its content.
"History" would be recognized today as the most famous essay from the collection and perhaps even the essay with which Emerson is most identified had the volume not also contained--directly following "History" which opens the collection--a little DIY essay that most readers likely have heard of somewhere along the way: "Self-Reliance."
