Nietzsche And Emerson Comparison

Literature teaches us many things on a daily basis. Different ways to look at life, at nature, at the people around us. It brings us into a whole new world that we can only see by reading the words of others. Eagleton, Nietzsche and Emerson give us that opportunity to see life in a different way by the lessons they write about. These writings have their differences but also connect with each other in some way. Eagleton, Nietzsche and Emerson were important writers of their time periods. Eagleton specialties are literary and cultural theory and the English-language literature. Which reflects on his different writing about “The Meaning of Life” and my favorite “What is Literature?”. Whereas Nietzsche was a German philosopher, essayist, and cultural …show more content…
When reading all the essays I feel as if “On Truths and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense” and “What is literature”. In Eagleton’s “what is literature, he continuously challenges all the definitions of literature that have been brought forth in the essay along with challenging all the basic understandings of literature that we have. In the beginning of Eagleton’s essay, he defined literature as being “imaginative writing”. We can compare this to “On Truths and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense” where we question what truth is along with the beginning of Nietzsche’s essay it begins with “Once Upon A time” giving us the impression of a fairytale like setting or it being fictional. Eagleton continues to tell us that there is no clear distinction between what is fact and what is fiction and in my opinion I connect that with Nietzsche’s views that trues and lies are connected to each other like the sun and the earth were and are connected. They come from each other. Another connection I made was with Eagleton saying that “Most of the time we breath in air without being conscious of it. I felt as if that connected best with Nietzsche’s interpretation that “Truths are illusions that we have forgotten are illusions”. We have gotten so comfortable with our daily routines that we don’t realize the things we do anymore, like lying, telling someone how we feel or even breathing. We have become so comfortable with the things we do on a daily basis that it becomes second nature to us. Although there are so many other ways to connect these two essays together I felt as if I addressed the most significant ones. I found it very interesting that these essays connected more than I thought they were going to, even down to the smallest things. It’s the little things that we do in our daily days that cause the largest