Discontinuity in Self-Reliance and When I Consider How My Light Is Spen

Discontinuity in Self-Reliance and When I fence How My Light Is pass Ralph Waldo Emerson emphatically proclaims in Self-Reliance that the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set naught at traditions but spokewhat they thought (515). Emerson declares that Miltons greatness is attributed not to conformity but rather to originality. Miltons break with consistent expectations is epitomized in his use of a Petrarchan sonnet in the poem When I Consider How My Light Is Spent. Nonconformity and discontinuity in a mans draw close to life are the doctrines espoused by Emerson in his work Self-Reliance, and Milton embodies an Emersonian outlook season inwardly searching for personal truth in his sonnet. The lack of lump structure in the works of the twain authors enhances rather than inhibits the readers grasp of the literature. Although both Emerson and Milton employ a discontinuous literary panache in their respective works, Emerson revels in his lack o f continuity to further proclaim his ideology of nonconformity and inconsistency while Miltons use of discontinuity is procured in an attempt to understand his place before God. The foundation for comparing the two works will be based on the following explanation of discontinuity any literary approach that deviates from standard structural form. The absence of statuesque structure in Emersons Self-Reliance has been derided by some critics as an insuperable handicap to an appropriate understanding of the work (Warren 200). A pure(a) examination of the work, however, evokes two fundamental claims Emerson provides a basis for some coloring material of structure, and complete continuity is antithetical to the fundamentals of Emersons Se... ... The American tradition in Literature. Eighth Edition. Ed. George Perkins. New York. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994. Milton, John. When I Consider How My Light Is Spent. The Norton Anthology of incline Literature. Sixth Edition. M.H.Abrams et al. New York W.W. Norton and Company, 1996. Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. John Milton A Readers suck up to His Poetry. New York Octagon Books, 1983. Packer, B.L. Emersons Fall A New Interpretation of the major Essays. 19th Century Literary literary criticism 38 (1993) 200-208. Robinson, David M. Grace and fly the coop Emersons Essays in Theological Perspective. 19th Century Literary Criticism 38 (1993) 223-230. Warren, Joyce W. Transcendentalism and the Self Ralph Waldo Emerson. 19th CenturyLiterary Criticism 38 (1993) 208-213. Wilson, A.N. The aliveness of John Milton. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1983.