American Literature / Unit 7 AML 0610 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Emerson's Style: The Aphorism as Argument
Captions available
The idea
Emerson's essays advance by sentences rather than paragraphs, and his best lines are portable enough to survive on their own. The method has a cost, since an essay assembled from aphorisms can seem to contradict itself, and a reader has to follow the movement rather than extract a doctrine.
In practice
Sentences that travel without their paragraphs.
Where people slip
The contradictions are method, not oversight.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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