Emerson and the Work of Melancholia

In this criticism of "Emerson and the work of Melancholia," Emerson's original style has soft of been lost because of the deaths of his wife and brother in the later years of his writing. This actually in all honesty explains why Emerson did not really believe in writing about romantic things or he did not really like the romantic point of view anymore because a main part of romantic writing is quite simply to pretend that mourning just does not exist(Edmundson). Now, as anyone can see, it was extremely hard for Emerson to do this because it is never easy at all to be able to not mourn the deaths of two loved ones, and so therefore he really did not like to believe in the point of view as the Romantic writers anymore because in all honesty, they like to pretend that everything in life is happy and that everything in life is very beautiful when really there are things in life in which we all must mourn over and there are things in life that are not beautiful like nature is and i it was extremely hard for Emerson to write about things such as these especially when it really was his first time experiencing not only one, but two deaths of two different loved ones(Edmundson). Now, after his brother and his wife had died, it was extremely hard for Emerson to keep an optimistic point of view when trying to write about things in which he formerly thought were happy. It is actually very easy for the author of the criticism to tell because the works of Emerson from there on really had a much different tone than his works before the two separate deaths in his life(Edmundson). For example, the author of the criticism states that in Emerson's writing, he usually presents two different viewpoints of what he is writing about to the reader of the poem. These points of view kind of represent the urge of jumping rather than being pushed off(Edmundson). In my opinion, it must have been extremely tough for Emerson to not just want to write about the point of view of being pushed off because of the recent tragedy he had experienced in his life, or at least he probably wanted to write from a much different point of view from then on out. Later in 1842, Emerson's son died(Edmundson). This obviously changed Emerson's writing to an even more depressing tone because he was not over the deaths of his wife and brother, but now his son dies. It changed his writing because usually, in the romantic style of writing, romantic writers are fine with everything that is going on and they really do not question much or challenge anything in their writing, but in the poem that Emerson wrote about his son, he basically says that to him, his son was brilliant and that he basically changed they world for him, or as Emerson describes in his poem, his son threw off the order of the world for Emerson (Edmundson).

"Emerson and the Work of Melancholia." Raritan (Spring 1987). Quoted as "Emerson and the Work of Melancholia" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Updated Edition, Bloom's Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=MCVRWE007&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 7, 2010).