Ralph Waldo Emerson outstanding as the best of Emerson's essays, which Bloom listed as "Self-Reliance", "Circles", "Experience", and "nearly all of "Conduct of Life"". In his belief that line lengths, rhythms, and phrases are determined by breath, Emerson's poetry foreshadowed the theories of Charles Olson. Collections Individual essays Poems Letters Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts
On Love and Death Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" to illustrate a central theme of the essays: an "erotic longing for death." The final section of the essays is devoted to a comparison of two mythological accounts of love: the stories of Orpheus and Jesus Christ. Süskind likens the two figures to each other in that both ventured into the realm of death because of their love; however, Süskind is critical of Jesus for his almost political motives and his "distance and inhumanity", in the sense that he was completely immune to the frenzy of love. He praises Orpheus for his courage and selflessness. While