The word "ambivalence" in the sentence refers to uncertainty about how he felt regarding his expected career as a minister. Therefore, the correct answer is:
A. uncertainty
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1
In his 1841 essay "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson writes "Whosoever would be a man must be a nonconformist." The great patriarch of American letters was himself a nonconformist through and through. Because of this—or, perhaps, in spite of it—Emerson is revered as one of America's greatest thinkers, an inimitable presence with whom all of his literary descendants have been obliged to wrestle. Writers as different from each other as Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne all might give credit to Emerson's influence as a writer, mentor, and public figure. He propounded a clear vision for America's future and for the role that artists and poets must play in that future. Whether subsequent writers embraced these ideas, as in the case of Whitman, or reacted against them, as in the case of Hawthorne, Emerson's literary influence was profound. "I was simmering, simmering, simmering," said Walt Whitman, "and Emerson brought me to a boil."
2
Emerson himself rarely followed the path intended for him, choosing instead to go his own way in intellectual and practical matters. He was born in 1803 in Boston, the middle son of a Unitarian minister. For much of his later childhood, the family faced financial troubles, making ends meet by renting out rooms in their home and occasionally moving in with relatives. In his early years, Emerson was educated at the Boston Latin School and through private tutoring sessions with his aunt, Mary Moody Emerson. He began his undergraduate education on a scholarship at Harvard, where he faltered in his studies because of vision problems and ambivalence about his expected career as a minister. Though he would go on to study at Harvard Divinity School, and, like nine generations of his family before him, would be ordained as a minister, Emerson soon diverged from this path. A crisis, perhaps sparked by the early death of his first wife, led to his resignation from the ministry after only six years, when he embarked instead upon an illustrious career as a poet, orator, and essayist.
3
As a writer, Emerson became known as a founding father of an intellectual and cultural movement known as Transcendentalism. Transcendentalists held as their highest values the independence of the individual, harmony between man and nature, and spiritual unity among human beings. Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed that all human beings desire freedom, knowledge and truth, and that they have equal access to divine inspiration. "It is one soul which animates all men," Emerson wrote. However, Emerson's personal belief system placed him in a somewhat heretical role with the established churches of the day. Transcendental philosophy, which was influenced heavily by the tenets of Hinduism and Buddhism, questioned many traditional Christian doctrines. Church leaders criticized Emerson as a "dangerous man." All the same, many Americans lauded him as a great thinker and a great man.
4
Emerson's personal influence on his fellow writers was often as profound as his intellectual influence. He was the mentor of another American writer, Henry David Thoreau, and loaned him the property at Walden Pond where Thoreau would write the celebrated masterpiece Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Emerson was a vocal supporter of the poet Walt Whitman and wrote a letter endorsing Whitman's Leaves of Grass as "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." When the family of Louisa May Alcott, the future author of Little Women, fell into poverty, Emerson raised money to support them. Throughout his life, he was a vocal abolitionist and an advocate for educational reform, social justice, and the rights of the much-maligned American Indians.
5
Although he was surely aware of the great influence he had on others in his lifetime, he advised, "Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things." What irony, then, that he has become one of the most valued writers in the American canon. Emerson may have been a contrarian all his days, but the kindness and generosity he showed to others, along with the intellectual rigor that he applied to all of his written works, have made him an important American figure quite worthy of adulation.
Multiple Choice Question
Read the sentence from paragraph 2.
He began his undergraduate education on a scholarship at Harvard, where he faltered in his studies because of vision problems and ambivalence about his expected career as a minister.
What does the word ambivalence mean as it is used in the sentence?
A.
uncertainty
B.
hostility
C.
obligation
D.
fearfulness
1 answer
1 answer