Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Selection from the Essays, the Poetry and the Journals

Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts–trained actor David Cort reads selected writings by transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. The chosen selections capture Emerson’s views on beauty, love, poetry, art, his literary contemporaries, and more. In an essay in the liner notes, album producer Samuel Charters identifies Emerson’s concern with expression as a key element in all of his work. “He wrote extensively, his essays, travel sketches, and poetry filling numerous volumes, but his concern was almost entirely with expression, rather than art.” Emerson’s emphasis on the expression of ideas no matter the form of delivery is apparent in Charter’s selections. The liner notes include a biographical sketch of Emerson, a short essay by Charters, and a transcript of the recording.

Track Listing

101	From the Essay, "Beauty"	David Cort	06:53
102	The Poem "The Snowstorm"	David Cort	01:59
103	Is This Beauty to Perish? And the Poem “Hamatreya”	David Cort	08:08
104	Each Age Must Write Its Own Books...	David Cort	06:38
105	From "Poetry and Imagination"	David Cort	01:25
201	The Nonconformist - Letters, and from the Essay Self Reliance	David Cort	09:34
202	Ode - Inscribed to W.H. Channing	David Cort	03:51
203	Give All to Love from the Poetry and the Journals	David Cort	04:14
204	Himself, American Art and Whitman, Thoreau, Hawthorne	David Cort	09:26