Mark Edmundson's Analysis of the Works of Melancholia

In the literary analysis done by Mark Edmundson, he points out that one way that Ralph Waldo Emerson, he points out specifically the way Emerson handled the death of his wife and the brother that he was very close to. Rather than mourning and becoming depressed over their deaths, he had a positive energy flowing through him during that difficult time. He did not believe in the common mourning process. Rather, he believed that “The object of life, as Emerson would see it, is to redeem our grief over what we are not and have not.” He believed that mourning over people was a waste because it was putting all of our spiritual energy into something that we would never get anything out of. This shows transcendentalism, which is the group that Emerson belonged to, because with these ideas he is blazing a trail that leads to spiritual independence rather than keeping with the constraints and bonds of the social norm. Many thought he was strange for not mourning the deaths of his loved ones, as we find it strange now, but in a way he is right in that the spiritual energy does not do us any good wrapped up in death.
The author discusses the way that Emerson talks about how as humans we are constantly being proactive within our souls and growing to new levels. One example that the author of the article uses from Emerson’s works is the way that in one of his texts Emerson likens us, as humans, to shellfish as we slowly but surely outgrow our homes and then leave them to find others that will suit us and we will be able to build up around us as we grow. Unfortunately, Emerson says that when this happens and we experience a moment of spiritual growth, we tend to attach it to some form in the physical world, such as a religious rite or some sort of literary text.
Unfortunately, then our souls, aching for stability, take those ways in which we are only meant to get out the evidence of our spiritual growth and turn them into “ultimate truths.” We then use these outlets for our spiritual growth and turn them into constraints for our spiritual growth. Emerson’s belief in the complete and total wrongness in this behavior once again shows us how Transcendentalism affected his work. This lack of belief in the common ideas of religion and the idea that each person individually is responsible for their own spirituality is a core principle of transcendentalism. Although the author of the article does not specifically talk about the way that Transcendentalism is shown through the works of Emerson, if one knows anything about transcendentalism it becomes very evident in the way Emerson writes, and I found it very important to understand his beliefs in order to understand where he was coming from in his essays. The author did a great job of illustrating Transcendentalism without even mentioning the word itself a single time.