Analysis Of Emerson's The Over-Soul

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Recommended: Emerson believed in individualism and the need for harmony between man and nature

In Emerson’s “The Over-Soul”, he talks of his belief in a God who is inside each of us and whom we can communicate with. Emerson means God to be a third party to the human race. He takes God and makes a religious being more secular by tying it to the existence of the over-soul. He expects us to recognize this presence through the manifestation of the over-soul in society. It ties us together into one, and through this united front we “all become wiser than [we] were”. Emerson doesn’t seem to recognize though that without the assumption that all of society recognizes the over-soul subconsciously, society would not accept “this deep power in which we exist”.
Emerson’s use of “I” in paragraph 11 invokes a certain separation between the reader and him. “I live in society; with persons who answer to …show more content…

Emerson writes about how it manifests into society and is a makeshift cloak around us. With Emerson’s persistent use of “I” in talking about the “closet of God” (paragraph 10), he takes away from the message of the …show more content…

Where does our “universal sense of want and ignorance” stem from? Emerson argues they derive from our connection to the over-soul. “When it breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love." If such a description sounds impervious, Emerson admits to describe the over-soul in words is an act of pointlessness, for one can only understand if one yields to and experiences the over-soul for oneself. Yet to a certain extent, we are all aware of its presence subconsciously in those moments the soul contradicts all normal experience by eliminating time and space. Such moments override the human mind, so convinced of the absolute reality of time and space. For example, we are aware of a certain sense of universal and eternal beauty, which “belongs to ages than to mortal

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