The Break Up :-(
Sunday by Caitlin
(Like that picture I made? Haha! If you haven't seen the movie The Break Up, that's the picture that's on all the movie posters. Obviously, Thoreau and Emerson were not in it before.)
So, I've been really interested in the relationship between Emerson and Thoreau, so I did a little research. I just looked at a few articles in the JSTOR database- so I know that there are probably millions of other articles out there, and lots of them will probably contest the information I found. It's common knowledge in the field of literary studies that Emerson and Thoreau shared a relationship between the late 1830s and early 1840s, but what I wanted to know is what, exactly, that relationship was like. My own thought, before I looked at these articles, was that Thoreau, being younger, looked up to Emerson, and Emerson thought of Thoreau as a kind of protege- so I thought it was a mutually enjoyable, close relationship.
Interestingly, John Brooks Moore and Robert Sattelmeyer each have very different opinions of this.
About the relationship between Emerson and Thoreau, Moore, in his 1932 article, "Thoreau Rejects Emerson," writes that it was assumed that the two men had a close relationship, because of their similar views and ideas. But, this was not the case.
"A curious witness to the comparative dominance of Thoreau in their relationship is to be found in their journals. There are over sixty important references to Thoreau in Emerson's Journals; while in Thoreau's Journal there are only between twenty and thirty really significant references to Emerson, most of them very brief. Further, it ought to be noted, Thoreau's references to Emerson are often ironic and entirely lack the tone of discipleship."
He goes on to say that Emerson, in his Journal, often quoted something from Thoreau and glowingly commends it. Apparently, Emerson praised and complimented Thoreau often, which caused Thoreau to complain:
"I should value E's. praise more, which is always so discriminating, if there were not some alloy of patronage and and hence of flattery about it..."
Hmm. Interesting. I'm actually not too sure what that means, but it doesn't sound as if Thoreau was that excited about Emerson's continued praises of him. Anyway, Moore's main point is that while Emerson looked at Thoreau with a sort of awe and praise, and Thoreau looks at Emerson as nothing really special. Moore writes that Thoreau did, once, find Emerson fascinating, but that view of him disappeared rapidly as time passed.
OK, so on the other hand, Sattelmeyer, in his 1989 article "When He Became My Enemy: Emerson and Thoreau, 1848-1849," has a completely different, and opposite, view than Moore. Sattelmeyer writes:
"Emerson and Thoreau became seriously estranged from each other in 1850...the impact of their falling out appears to have been more personally devastating to Thoreau, for Emerson was clearly the great companion of his early years, the one on whom he had most staked his intense aspirations for a transcendental friendship."
That's interesting. But what is even more interesting is what Sattelmeyer says about the importance of Emerson to Thoreau:
"For Emerson, on the other hand, Thoreau, though clearly a central figure in the older man's life, was finally only one of several younger friends and proteges who ultimately proved to be personal and professional disappointments to him."
OK. So that's basically the complete opposite of what Moore writes. Moore says that Emerson deeply admired Thoreau and made tons of glowing references to him in his Journal, but Thoreau was the one who was not too enamored with Emerson, and was actually pretty annoyed by him. Sattelmeyer says that Emerson was the one who was annoyed with Thoreau, who he thought was a disappointment and a failure, and that when the two men stopped talking, Thoreau was absolutely devastated because Emerson was, in fact, his BFF.
This whole thing makes me laugh. It's like Emerson and Thoreau had groupies, and the groupies fought (and are still fighting over) who didn't like who. I take that back- I guess that's kind of mean. Some Thoreau or Emerson scholar might stumble upon this blog and get all upset because I called them a groupie. I'm sorry.
Anyway, I think my personal conclusion is that Emerson and Thoreau liked each other, enjoyed each other's company, but when Thoreau got too popular, Emerson got all bitter, couldn't take it and he hit the road. That's what I think. I could be wrong, and I probably need to do more research before I make a bold statement like that, but that's my conclusion from the extremely intriguing research I've done.
