American Literature / Unit 7 AML 0605 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Transparent Eyeball
Captions available
The idea
Crossing a bare common at twilight, Emerson's narrator reports that all mean egotism vanishes, that he becomes a transparent eyeball, that he is nothing and sees all, and that the currents of Universal Being circulate through him. The image was mocked at once and has outlived the mockery.
In practice
Nothing, and seeing everything.
Where people slip
The passage claims dissolution, not observation.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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