On the Relationship between Innovation and Tradition
in the Perspective of The American Scholar
Introduction
The American Scholar was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)
in 1837 to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The ignoring of
authority, tradition and history, the ultimate pursuit of perfect harmony between man
and nature, the in-depth torture of the spiritual life, the continuous exploration of
man’s own intuitive make the speech one of the masterpieces of Emerson.
In the book The Cambridge Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson Joel Porte,
Sandra Morris and some famous critics give the readers a detailed description and a
profound analysis about Emerson’s life and his thinking system especially his view
of transcendentalism. It is very useful for people who want to make a research in
Emerson’s works and his style of ideology.
The American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe 60 years after
declaring independence, and Emerson was, for the first time in the country’s history,
providing a roadmap on how to escape from underneath that veil and build a new,
American identity. That is what contemporary scholars often discuss about in their
papers and works — calling for an independent human thought from the European
spiritual restraint in the U.S. For example, Zhang Jing in her Consciousness of
Self-Independence — Base of Scholar’s Fresh Soul — Emerson and The American
Scholar discusses about the core of Emerson’s view of independence and
self-reliance. Some scholars hold the opinion that Emerson uses transcendentalist
and romantic views to get his points across by explaining a true American scholar’s
relationship to nature like Richardson Jr. and Robert D. who are the writers of
Emerson: The Mind on Fire.
Besides the independent and natural views, innovation is another topic which
more and more scholars like to discuss about. Sui Gang talked about the source of
creativity and innovation in his paper Spirituality •Virtue • Creation. He thought
under the guidance of inspiration personal spirituality can be turned into creativity.
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On the Relationship between Innovation and Tradition
in the Perspective of The American Scholar
Such inspiration comes from the natural, social and cultural life. Marjorle C. Miller
combined the innovation of the American Scholar with cultural melting. People
nowadays should actively respond to the diversity, welcome different cultures in
order to get the inspiration to create their own things.
This paper begins with the analysis of tradition and the position occupied by
Emerson in American culture. Combining with social condition and the phenomenon
calling for the innovation, the paper will focus on analyzing the relationship between
tradition and innovation embodied in The American Scholar. A exposition in details
about whether anti-traditional actions should be bold or should be controlled will be
put forward as a conclusion of the whole thesis.
The theme of this paper is almost new in the field of research about Emerson
because it analyzes the relationship between tradition and innovation dialectically in
the perspective of The American Scholar. Such kind of analysis is fresh and valuable
to some degree.
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On the Relationship between Innovation and Tradition
in the Perspective of The American Scholar
1 Tradition and Emerson in American Culture
The word tradition comes from the Latin word traditio which means “to hand
down” or “to hand over.” On a more basic theoretical level, tradition can be seen as
information or composed of information since such information is brought into the
present from the past, in a particular societal context. This is even more fundamental
than particular acts or practices even if repeated over a long sequence of time
because such acts or practices, once performed, disappear unless they have been
transformed into some manner of communicable information.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is one of those thumbs who are famous for
their works related more or less to tradition and innovation. He occupies an
important seat both in American literature and culture. The following part will give
more details about his position in American culture.
1.1 Connotation of Tradition
Tradition has multiple identities. Different traditions play different roles in the
developments of nations, societies and individuals. Old traditional thoughts could
become the barriers to new ideas; they may also become the fertile ground of new
ideas. Tradition can be innate and deep-rooted or be borrowed. It may even be
changed during the formation of new thoughts and values. Whether people will
reject to or inherit the tradition depends on the needs of the times.
1.1.1 Definition of Tradition
The English author, journalist, and artist Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
hold the opinion that “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes
— our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the
small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking around.”[1]
Tradition is not something concrete but something abstract like a flash of idea.
It is passed from generation to generation especially in an oral form as
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On the Relationship between Innovation and Tradition
in the Perspective of The American Scholar
communication. Thus, tradition can be seen as a series of thoughts come from a
group of people whose ideas could influence their generation.
Dorothy Day (1897-1980), best known as Laywoman who co-founded The
Catholic Worker, states “Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are
afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in
name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear
we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.” [1]
Ellen Holtz Goodman (1941- ), an American journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for
commentary, also argues that “Traditions are the guideposts driven deep in our
subconscious minds. The most powerful ones are those we can’t even describe and
aren’t even aware of.” [1] That is to say, people who created tradition did not mean to
do so and their off springs inherited their thoughts in an unconscious way. People’s
awe of tradition comes from the obscure characteristic of it. Thus, tradition can be
defined as a baby of collective unconsciousness.
1.1.2 Formation of Tradition
In the introduction to the book, The Invention of Tradition, the historian Eric
Hobsbawm argues that invented tradition includes, “both traditions actually invented,
constructed and formally instituted and those emerging in a less easily traceable
manner with a brief and dateable period — a matter of a few years perhaps — and
establishing themselves with great rapidity.” These “invented traditions” are “a set of
practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or
symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by
repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.”[2] Usually, they try
to establish links with a suitable historic past but their connection with this past is
tenuous at best. In sum, Hobsbawm writes, invented traditions “are responses to
novel situations which take the form of reference to old situations, or which establish
their own past by quasi-obligatory repetition.”
[2]
The formation of tradition,
according to Eric Hobsbawm, should consult ancient thoughts in any way. That is to
say, tradition has a deep source and should be fostered continuously by the thoughts
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On the Relationship between Innovation and Tradition
in the Perspective of The American Scholar
of generations. People should not deny the region of their tradition since the
formation of tradition is a complete process absorbing nutrition from the ancient.
Allan David Bloom (1930-1992), an American political philosopher, professor,
and author, best known for his criticism of American higher education states “As
soon as tradition has come to be recognized as tradition, it is dead.” [1] That is to say,
the formation of tradition is completed in a process without unconsciousness. Such
idea can be traced back to Carl Jung (1875-1961)’s theory of Collective Unconscious.
Collective unconscious is a term of analytical psychology originally coined by Carl
Jung. While Freud did not distinguish between an “individual psychology” and a
“collective psychology”, Jung distinguished the collective unconscious from the
personal unconscious particular to each human being. The formation of tradition is
given birth not by individuals but by a group of people and it is admired and
inherited by those people’s followers without stipulation. It is to some degree a
process of collective unconsciousness.
1.1.3 Features of Tradition
(1) Systematical
Tradition is a system which refers to a series of thought. A tradition can be a
practice, custom, or story that is memorized and passed down from generation to
generation. However, those practices, customs or stories are only fragments of the
connotation of tradition. The tradition system covers a wide range including divinity
and earth life. In the period of economy, literature, philosophy and religion people
have traditions with the same root. For example, Dalai Lama in China said that “All
major religious traditions carry basically the same message, which is love,
compassion and forgiveness ... the important thing is they should be part of our daily
lives.” [1]
(2) Inherence
Russell (Wayne) Baker (1925- ), Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner with his
famous works Growing Up (1982) and syndicated column in “Observer”, states that
“In America nothing dies easier than tradition.” [1] The French philosopher Auguste
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in the Perspective of The American Scholar
Comte (1798-1857) argues that tradition is the process that “The dead govern the
living.” [1] The Russian author and political agitator Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen
(1812-1870) criticizes that “There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a
corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it.” [1] It is
well-known to compare tradition to corpse because of its inveterate feature.
Traditions are often presumed to be ancient, unalterable, and deeply important,
though they may sometimes be much less “natural” than is presumed. Some
traditions were deliberately invented for one reason or another, often to highlight or
enhance the importance of a certain institution. Traditions may also be changed to
suit the needs of the day, and the changes can become accepted as a part of the
ancient tradition.
(3) Variety
Tradition is various according to different nations and races. On the other hand,
although the root of tradition can’t be changed, the content of it would change more
or less with the flowing of time. Thus, tradition is evolved into variety of different
forms.
Some examples include “the invention of tradition”
[2]
in Africa and other
colonial holdings by the occupying forces. Requiring legitimacy, the colonial power
would often invent a “tradition” which they could use to legitimize their own
position. For example, a certain succession to chiefdom might be recognized by a
colonial power as traditional in order to favor their own candidates for the job. Often
these inventions were based in some form of tradition, but were grossly exaggerated,
distorted, or biased toward a particular interpretation.
1.2 Emerson in American Culture
Emerson occupies an important seat in American culture because his ideas and
the transcendental movement exerted a great influence on American society
especially in the intellectual world at his time. Under his effort, American
Romanticism was driven to a new phase — the phase of New England
transcendentalism,
the
summit
of
American
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Romanticism.
Emerson’s
On the Relationship between Innovation and Tradition
in the Perspective of The American Scholar
transcendentalism not only enriched the content and theme of American literature,
but also enlarged the range of writing style and made a breakthrough of writing
technique.
1.2.1 Background of Emerson’s Thoughts
Emerson was in a society with rapid economic development but distorted
human nature and personal beliefs facing a crisis. “The priest becomes a form; the
attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship. The
scholars who ought to be Man Thinking tended to become a mere thinker, or, still
worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.” [3]
The motives of European settlers were divided into religious reasons, politic
reasons and economic reasons. British people moved to the new world, seeking for
religious freedom, evading the tyranny and political instability and exploring fortune
and their own land. The British government treated the new land as their tool of
domination of the world and the source of exchequer.
The American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe 60 years after
declaring independence. In the early 19th century, the United States was in the age of
territorial expansion and the prosperous period of economic development. Creation
and invention were encouraged at the same time when western European science and
technology were introduced. The establishment of a large number of new industrial
enterprises, banks and stock exchanges were most under the help of European capital.
While accepting the support of the European economy, the Americans were
undergoing the same erosion of the European tradition.
(1) Values
Mammonism and capitalism were the main values which European rulers
brought to their colonies. As Emerson described in The American Scholar: “The
trade man scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine
of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars.” [3] As 16th and 17th century English
promoters were attempting to persuade Englishmen to move to the colonies. Their
promises about what the colonies were like were simultaneously laying the
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groundwork for three separate, but interrelated persistent myths of America: America
as the land of plenty, America as the land of opportunity, and America as the land of
destiny. Those immigrants came to this land for fortune more or less made such
values rampant and eroded the Native American soul.
(2) Religion
Immigrants seeking for religious freedom brought their belief which couldn’t
stand in Europe to America the virgin land.
The most important religion was Puritanism which was used as the ideological
control. Puritanism inherited the core of Calvinism. Calvinism is a theological
system and an approach to the Christian life that emphasizes the rule of God over all
things. Named after French reformer John Calvin, this variety of Protestant
Christianity is sometimes called the Reformed tradition, the Reformed faith, or
Reformed theology. The Reformed tradition was advanced by theologians such as
Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Huldrych Zwingli and
also influenced English reformers such as Thomas Cranmer and John Jewel. Yet due
to John Calvin’s great influence and role in the confessional and ecclesiastical
debates throughout the 17th century, the tradition generally became known as
Calvinism. Most settlers in the American Mid-Atlantic and New England were
Calvinists, including the Puritans and French Huguenot and Dutch settlers of New
Amsterdam (New York).
Unitarianism in the United States followed essentially the same development as
in England, and passed through the stages of Arminianism, Arianism, to rationalism
and a modernism based on a large-minded acceptance of the results of the
comparative study of all religions. In the early 18th century Arminianism presented
itself in New England, and sporadically elsewhere. This tendency was largely
accelerated by a backlash against the “Great Awakening” under Jonathan Edwards
and George Whitefield. Before the War of Independence Arianism showed itself in
individual instances, and French influences were widespread in the direction of
deism, though they were not organized into any definite utterance by religious
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bodies
With the development of industry and the rise of national consciousness, the
voice of religious freedom was much louder than ever before. Puritan’s theocratic
rule was superseded by the climate of democracy, national independence and
self-reliance.
Emerson’s lecture The Divinity School Address was attacked by Calvinists and
Unitarians. This shows that various kinds of ideas filled the American capitalism and
struggled fiercely against each other.
(3) Literature
Immigrants first came to the New World, busy with the struggle to survive,
spent little with literature. The earliest published works about the North America
were travel notes and diary and most of the authors were British. After the
establishment of British colony, the rulers used religion, especially Puritanism as the
main means of control of ideology. Many publications at that time were about
theological studies or colonial life. Cotton Mather was famous for his Magnalia
Christi Americana. However, that work was obviously a heritage of British tradition.
Anne Bradstreet in her poem On the Burning of Our House also wrote about the
colonial life. Michael Wigglesworth presented Calvinism in his representative work
The Day of Doom.
1.2.2 Influence of Emerson’s Style
(1) Formation of National Literature
Dogmatism, Formalism and Mammonism were the main spiritual yoke which
European settlers left to Americans.
Before Emerson, James Fenimore Cooper, father of American novel, introduced
national theme, American background and the U.S figures in his works such as
Leather Stocking Tales. It could be the beginning of the construction of American
characteristic in the period of literature. Humorous writers including Seba Smith and
Benjamin P. Shillaber in New England and Davy Crockett, Augustus Baldwin
Longstreet, Johnson J. Hooper, Thomas Bangs Thorpe, Joseph G. Baldwin, and
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in the Perspective of The American Scholar
George Washington Harris writing about the American frontier did a great help in
the presentation of American style. They put emphasis on the discussion of the
relationship between human and nature and the contradiction between society and
individual.
Emerson called the American scholars that “We will walk on our feet; we will
work with our hands; we will speak our minds.” [3] According to The American
Scholar, the freshness of literature asked for a clear sense of independence, shaking
off the shackles of dogmatism, resisting material and power desires, challenging the
dominance of temptation of money and machines, vigilancing the risk of personal
alienation, and rejecting to the illusory prosperity without spiritual significance.
Scholars should explore the essence of life calmly and optimistically with serious
attitude. They should make full use of natural innovation potential to create a new
American culture with the characteristics of the era and the race.
American characteristics is to some degree the reflection of American spirit
which writers like Emerson stated and struggled for ─ tenacious fighting for
spiritual freedom, hard working for national development and forging ahead.
According to those writers, Americans should not dog the authority or be satisfied
with actuality but seek for the construction of their own independent tradition and
praise innovation.
(2) Intuition and Imagination
Emerson’s intuition and imagination request people to seek truth by nature.
They caused the prosperity of Romanticism and Symbolism in American literary
circles.
Emerson in his famous work The School Divinity praised people with fresh
intuition and imagination as whom “history delights to honor”. Instead of attending
too much on elements like order and grace, reason and logic and so on, Emerson
appealed for the content of the works, emotion and imagination of the writers. In
Emerson’s opinion, the purpose of art and literature did not rest with the graceful
form and regulations, to say nothing of “imitation”, instead, the ultimate purpose of
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literature was to “invent”.
Such thinking style inspired a whole generation of authors of his time such as
Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Dickinson and Howells as well as writers
of the following generation such as Pond, Frost and Hemingway. All of those writers
have constructed an impetus to the development of American literature.
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2 Innovation Presented in The American Scholar
The reason why Emerson and other scholars in America chose anti-tradition as
their way of innovation was that the European tradition had become the yoke of
American spirit. They struggled not only for a literature with American characteristic
but also for the spiritual independence of the nation.
Such process of shrugging off the chains of tradition required the scholars and
the people to seek for sensual independence and self-reliance, to dig the national
spirit from social life and to find inspiration from the nature. This process will be
discussed in details as followed.
2.1 Transcending Freedom of the Spirit
2.1.1 Emerson’s Idea of Freedom
(1) Scholarly Freedom
Scholarly Freedom refers to the freedom from imitation. In his essays Nature
and The American Scholar Emerson called for a freedom from the traditions and the
institution of the past. Such freedom does not deny the value of the past. However,
that valuable as they are, the spiritual heritage can prevent human’s enjoying what
Emerson calls in Nature “an original relation to the universe” [4]. Oliver Wendell
Holmes calls the speech The American Scholar America’s “Intellectual Declaration
of Independence”. It is a call of literary independence from Europe and past
traditions. To become a scholar, humans also need to develop self-trust, espouse
freedom and bravery, and value the individual over the masses. Emerson in this
essay introduced the startling, heretical admonition not to worship or make false
idols of books and other objects of art as the demonstration of his belief in the
creative and active reading and writing. To live as a scholar, as “Men Thinking” [3],
Emerson cautioned the scholars to struggle against the false idolatry of books and
thus enjoy the scholarly freedom.
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(2) Religious Freedom
By Religious Freedom Emerson called for a freedom from church formalities
and rites. He held the idea that scholars idolize books while Christians idolize Christ.
His shocking moral is that people should not imitate Christ but to achieve their own
original spiritual relationship to the universe by relying on their own heart or
intuition. Emerson made clear the role of Jesus in The Divinity School Address:
Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to
communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is
not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggeration of the personal, the positive,
the ritual. It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of
Jesus. The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to the full
circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous
love. But by this eastern monarchy of a Christianity, which indolence and fear
have built, the friend of man is made the injurer of man. [3]
According to Emerson, a true religion is the religion of the soul. Emerson
believes that the world is not the product of manifold powers, but of one will, of one
mind and that one mind is everywhere active, in each ray of the star, in each wavelet
of the pool; and whatever opposes that will, is everywhere balked and baffled,
because things are made so and not otherwise.
2.1.2 Spiritual Liberation in The American Scholar
Emerson did not try to deny the European tradition but protested against the
spiritual bondages like dogmatism and formalism borrowed from Europe. Basing on
such anti-tradition, the concept of Emerson’s innovation called the American
scholars to think independently and overcome the pathological psychology that
blindly worship the E.U. Emerson argues that “We have listened too long to the
courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to
be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick
and fat.” [3] The American scholars should write books representing their own time
and thoughts. As Emerson put forward his opinion towards tradition, “We hear, that
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On the Relationship between Innovation and Tradition
in the Perspective of The American Scholar
we may speak.” [12]
Although Emerson’s aim is toward freedom — forward rather than backward
— He in The American Scholar both implicitly and explicitly discloses people’s
failures, especially the American Scholars’ failures to act freely. “We are cowed,” he
writes, “the trustless.” [3]
However, The American scholar is suffused with confidence that a new day is
at hand and human, particularly Americans are ready to slough off the past. Emerson
in the essay defined that day as “our day of independence, our long apprenticeship to
the learning of other lands, draws to a close.” [3]
Emerson closed Nature by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to
emerge from the new idealist philosophy:
So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the
endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, —
What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... Build,
therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in
your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in
things will attend the influx of the spirit. [4]
Spirit Guides would help the Americans in their search for self discovery.
According to the theology, those guides live in the upper world. Oftentimes, they are
in human form in appearance that was what the Transcendentalist called the
combination of man and God. In order to change the outside world they live in but
not what they truly wanted to experience, the American scholars must change their
inside world in the way of cultivating their own thoughts.
2.2 Self-Reliance
2.2.1 Connotation of Self-Reliance
By self-reliance Emerson meant “Trust thyself”, “believe your intuition” [4] and
live your own life. In the essay Self-Reliance he told people to believe their own
thought and never to rely on others and the recorded knowledge. People should
cultivate their own “genius” [5] and potential power as he states: “Trust your self:
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every heat vibrates to that Iron string…The power which resides in him is new in
nature and none but he knows what is which he can do, nor does he know until he
has tried.” [4]
Emerson hated “conformity” [4], and he thought nothing is important for our
self-awareness. We should learn from infancy: “Infancy conforms to nobody: all
conform to it”. He said, “The healthy attitude of human nature” is to behave
everything at ease, “your conformity explains nothing”, “insist on your self; never
imitate…imitation is suicide”. He called on people to “act singly, and what you have
already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.” [4]
When pursuing truth, according to Emerson, one should not be afraid of being
misunderstood by others. He enumerated that great men like Moses, Jesus, Socrates,
Milton, Luther, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton all had been misunderstood. Thus,
he concluded that “To be great is to be misunderstood.” “Every great man is
unique.” [4]
2.2.2 Self-Reliance in The American Scholar
In The American Scholar Emerson states that self-trust should be the
characteristic and duty of American scholars. Being self-trust means never dog
authorities and treats tradition calmly with one’s independent views and thoughts.
“In the long period of his preparation, he must betray often an ignorance and
shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the disdain of the able who shoulder him
aside.” [3] As the scholars doing so, they “must accept…poverty and solitude.” “The
deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment, to his wonder he finds, this
is the most acceptable, most public, and universally true. The people delight in it; the
better part of every man feels, This is my music; this is myself.” [3] Being self-trust,
the scholars would no longer scare about the fetter of classical ideology and tradition;
they should become free and brave.
2.3 Soul’s Back to Nature
2.3.1 Theoretical Basis — Romanticism and Transcendentalism
The emergence of Romantic views was promoted during the Western
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Expansion. The cores of Romanticism were self-independence and the praise of
nature.
In the United States, anticipations of Romanticism appear as early as the late
18th century — most notably in discussions of the sublime and the picturesque in
landscape, and in the influence of the “moral sense”
[6]
philosophy of such
post-Locheans as Francis Hutcheson, Dugald Stewart, and Thomas Reid. Although
such proto-Romanticism can be found even in the works of Jonathan Edwards and
Thomas Jefferson, it is most evident in the gothic and sentimental fictions that
flourished in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is customary,
however, to date the official beginning of American Romanticism from the rise of
Bostonian “transcendentalism” in the 1830s. An outgrowth of liberal Christianity,
transcendentalism began as occasional meetings among recent graduates of the
Harvard Divinity School. The unique American characteristic was especially
reflected in Transcendentalism.
Among Transcendentalists’ core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that
“transcends” the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual’s
intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.
Emerson was transcendentalism’s most philosophical writer and its greatest
advocate for unification with the Universal Spirit or the One. Emerson’s Nature was
less concerned with the natural landscape than with the role that individual thought
played in perceiving the world of substance. In this book he argued for the creative
power of consciousness.
Palington in his book The History of American Thought commented the
innovation of Transcendentalism ─ the inspirations’ back to nature ─ as a process of
digging man’s potentiality which has reflected the secret of God but was mistaken as
man’s instinct
[7]
. Every day is a new day for man who becomes the inhabitancy of
deity as every day is full of hope, belief and trust
[7]
. That is to say, only by back to
the nature, man can find the seedbed of their soul and the divinity.
2.3.2 American Scholar’s Relationship to Nature
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Emerson uses Transcendentalist and romantic views to get his points across by
explaining a true American scholar’s relationship to nature. There are a few key
points he makes that flesh out this vision:
(1) “One Man” [3] is the unity of all society working together to help each other,
with one body part being no more important than the next.
(2) People need to see themselves as a part of the whole, as necessary and
essential to all of society. He states, “Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an
engineer, but he is all.” [3]
(3) The “American Scholar” has an obligation, as “Man Thinking” [3] within this
“One Man”
[3]
concept, to see the world clearly, not severely influenced by
traditional/historical views, and to broaden our understanding of the world from
fresh eyes, to “defer never to the popular cry.” [3]
In his speech, Emerson stated, “The first in time and the first in importance of
the influences upon the mind is that of nature.” [3] The nature’s “beauty is the beauty
of” man’s “own mind does he not ye possess.” [3] That is to say, man would find
himself while recognizing the inner of nature.
The combination of man’s soul and nature could be the source of inspiration
and innovation because man should find himself and the value of life in nature. It
was a luxury thing for most of the American civilians go back to nature and search
for the truth of life for they had devoted themselves into the worship of money and
power. Such choice was illiberal and did nothing help with the independence and
development of America. Emerson stated, “The one thing in the world, of value, is
the active soul.” [3] The active soul which is the origin of innovation can only come
from nature. As he thought “Manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom
or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind’s own sense of good and
fair.” [3] Back to nature to resist the influence of formalism and dogmatism and find
new ideas is another aspect of Emerson’s anti-tradition.
2.4 Social and Cultural Responsibilities of the Scholar
The tradition borrowed from European was not only unsuitable for American
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ideology but also improper for the development of American society; however it
promoted the American economy to some degrees. Thus the innovation constructed
on that tradition should be congruous with the real social life.
2.4.1 Investigation and Reflection of the Truth
The American scholars should investigate and understand nature, which
includes their own mind and person and study “the mind of the Past” to gain new
perspective and to try to “get at the truth.”
According to Emerson, the scholar is “the world’s eye” and “the world’s heart”
[3]
. “It is a shame…if he seeks a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts
from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering
bushes…” [3]
The duty of the scholars to civilians “is to resist the vulgar prosperity that
retrogrades ever to barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic sentiments,
noble biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of history.” [3] They have to
wake the civilians, ask them to “quit the false good, and leap to the true.” [3]
2.4.2 Interaction with the World
Emerson asked the Scholars not to become the recluse thinker commenting
from afar. The American scholars should “ask not for the great, the remote, the
romantic; what is doing in Italy or Arabia; what is Greek art, or Provencal
minstrelsy,” but “embrace the common” and “explore and sit at the feet of the
familiar, the low.”
[3]
While talking about the theme of the literature, Emerson
suggested that “instead of the sublime and beautiful; the near, the low, the common,
was explored and poetized.” [3]
Emerson highly praised Goldsmith, Burns, Cowper, Wordsworth and Carlyle in
his speech for their genius and innovation inspired by social life. According to
Emerson, the style of Pope, Johnson and Gibbon “looks cold and pedantic” [3]. In The
Poet Emerson called the poets to eulogize all kinds of professions, states and races to
welcome the American era. He held the idea that “The near explains the far. The
drop is a small ocean.”
[3]
Such thought was in fact a contribution for the
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independence of American literature and even the nation itself in the circumstance
that a large number of scholars worshiped dogmatism and formalism. It encouraged
the American scholar to realize the condition and the future of America and promote
the national development with their pens.
Emerson’s most gifted fellow-thinker Thoreau in his Slavery in Massachusetts
and A Plea for Captain Brown discussed about the social problems. Poet Whitman
held the idea that American poems should not dog the groan of classical poets or
spread didactic poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s style. They all appreciated
the civilian characteristic of literature and proved the exactness and advisability of
Emerson’s innovation.
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3 The Relationship between Innovation and Tradition in the
Vicissitude of Times
Different eras call for different means of innovations with different extends.
Anti-tradition mentioned before is an aspect of the relationship between innovation
and tradition. Such kind of innovation is useful especially when a country’s tradition
is borrowed from other nations. For example, Emerson’s innovation was according
to the background of his country. However, anti-innovation does not mean the whole
of innovation and does not fit to the entire world. The ways of innovation changes
with the vicissitude of times. That is to say, the relationship between innovation and
tradition would change according to the flux of times.
3.1 Consanguinity between Innovation and Tradition
Innovation must be produced during the conflict between the new ideas and the
old traditions
[8]
. It can be done in the process of anti-tradition or directly build on
the original tradition. But innovation can never be divorced from tradition and exist
without tradition.
Traditions are often presumed to be ancient, unalterable, and deeply important,
though they may sometimes be much less “natural” than is presumed
[9]
. Thus,
innovation has always been derived from tradition. However, it is not to say that
innovation is only “a heritage of tradition”
[10]
. The emergence of innovation often
happens when it has irreconcilable contradictions with tradition. For example, the
innovation ─ a desire of independent humanism thoughts
[11]
─ in The American
Scholar happened under the background of European tradition’s interference to
American characteristics.
Emerson visually described the source of inspiration ─ nature, culture, tradition
and social life ─ in this famous speech. Creation, according to Emerson’s ideology,
comes from inspiration and can trace back to the influences of nature, culture,
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tradition and social life
[8]
. “The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar is,
the mind of the Past, in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions,
that mind is inscribed.” [3] Emerson himself also admitted the importance of tradition.
If tradition is borrowed from other nations, people should struggle to it but at the
same time accept its existence and inherit its advantages. If tradition is innate and
independent, people should construct a new tradition on the basis of classical
ideologies. That is to say, creation could not be dissevered from tradition, whether
that tradition is marvelous or likes a ruin.
3.2 Era of Anti-Tradition
Anti-tradition refers to the discontent and elimination of out-fashioned tradition.
Innovation based on the original tradition refers to the improvement and recreation
of tradition.
In the early 19th century, European tradition was “a barrier for the independence
of America”
[12]
because it heavily influenced the civilians’ private capability of
thought. Americans needed to find an exit for ideological liberation. Thus,
Emerson’s innovation in the American Scholar played the role of an impulse for the
national spiritual independence. That is to say, the suppression of European tradition
and the civilians’ wish to change actuality which did nothing help for the further
advance of the U.S made up the seedbed and final success of Emerson’s innovation.
He at that time broke the complacent and conservative thinking model of the
American scholars and awakened the enthusiasm of the independence of American
spirit. He uncovered the position of human in the universe and revealed people’s
creative potential. It was the era itself called for the entire ego of America and a
person like Emerson who asked the nation and her people to escape from the chain
of other tradition and find the entire liberation.
The praxis of American spiritual independence proved that the relationship
between innovation and tradition should be determined also by the need of the era.
Emerson was in the pivotal time of American independence and his choice of
anti-tradition was in accordance with the era.
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3.3 Innovation in the New Era
Different from Emerson’s anti-tradition, another kind of innovation inherit the
essence of tradition and progresses on the basis of tradition. Such innovation can be
divided into three types:
(1) Promotion of the advantages of tradition;
(2) New ideas unearthed from tradition;
(3) Utilization of the thoughts combining the virtue of foreign cultures with the
situation of the nation itself.
The innovation Marjorle C. Miller mentioned in his paper The American
Scholar and Global Civilization is of this style. He named such style “the innovation
in the new era” [10]. This innovation is more influential in contemporary society with
peaceful circumstance and economic flourish. Most of the countries would choose
such innovation instead of anti-tradition because they are independent and have no
need to shake off the yoke of other nations or races. What the new era calls for is a
peaceful and calm innovation suiting for the global civilization and satisfying
different kinds of cultures. All we should do is to create and innovate under the
precondition of protecting national tradition. A country could not be independent
without its own tradition. The tradition which Emerson resisted to in his era was
borrowed tradition. Thus, it can be dangerous if people entirely inherit Emerson’s
anti-tradition.
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Conclusion
How to treat the relationship between innovation and tradition is still a topic
under debate. The innovation praised in Emerson’s The American Scholar was
profound and significant for the writer’s era and nation. However, it doesn’t mean
that such innovation is suitable for any nations and eras. This paper discusses the
multiple identities of tradition and the consanguinity between innovation and
tradition especially reflected in The American Scholar. Emerson’s anti-tradition, the
emphasis of this paper, is embodied by transcending freedom of spirit, self-reliance,
soul’s back to nature and social and cultural responsibilities of the scholar. Such
innovation is in fact a gospel for the civilians if the tradition being resisted entirely
inherits other race’s spirit and collides with national development. For example,
Emerson’s innovation could be the liberation of American spirit. On the contrary, the
new era leaves new demands for innovation ─ inheriting the advantages of
tradition and the worship of cultural melting.
This paper is just a rough conclusion of innovation in The American Scholar
and a simple discussion of the relationship between innovation and tradition. With
the flowing of times and development of society, more and more writers will go
further and do research more penetrative in this period.
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Bibliography
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Acknowledgements
I should like to acknowledge with deep gratitude the assistance and guidance
given to me by Ms. Tang Meixiu. During the whole process of writing this paper,
she not only directed me to choose a proper topic to my taste but also stimulated my
inspiration. This paper could only be a dreamy structure without her help. Besides, I
would extend my sincere thanks to my classmates Jin Na, Liang Wenliang and
others who gave me a lot of advices about this paper. Finally my gratitude will go to
the library assistants in our school for their generosity of lending me reference
materials of great value.
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