In the first week, we will consider Emerson's Essays, First Series (1841). For all his aversion to a "foolish consistency," Emerson practices a kind of consistency in his own writing, for the essays reflect each other, each as it were from its own point of view.

The first session will be devoted to the development of this idea, by considering some thoughts to which Emerson consistently gives expression in the Essays, for example that the world is fundamentally a process, that the present deserves our attention more than the past or future, that the glance is more insightful than the steady gaze, and that persons are self-definers who, motivated by fear, find ways to dodge their freedom.

We will consider some touchstone passages in Emerson's greatest essays: "History" "Self-Reliance," "Circles," " and "The Over-Soul, and use these essays to introduce the subjects of idealism, ethics, and the self, that will occupy us in subsequent weeks.

In the second and third sessions of the week we will look at two powerful but not frequently read essays in the First Series, "Intellect" and "Spiritual Laws. Reading each closely, we will work out to the larger consistencies of the Essays, considering ways in which "Intellect," like "Circles," is a metaphysical essay, and "Spiritual Laws" a statement of Emerson's moral ideal of a "high," "generous" and "commanding" life. These two concerns-metaphysics and morality-provide the main lines of inquiry for the next two weeks' sessions.