American Literature
Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first, then revised
them for print. His first two collections of essays Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series, published respectively in 1841 and 1844
represent the core of his thinking, and include such wellknown essays as SelfReliance, The OverSoul, Circles, The Poet and Experience.
Together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid1830s to the mid1840s Emerson's most fertile period. Emerson wrote on a
number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for
humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emerson's "nature" was more philosophical
than naturalistic: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul." His essays remain among the linchpins of
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