# Emanuel Swedenborg — Representative Men character guide

> Emanuel Swedenborg in Representative Men by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Swedenborg

**First appearance:** 0003-iii-swedenborg-or-the-mystic

## Snapshot

A Swedish assessor of mines who hauled ships overland and then, at fifty-four, threw all that force into theology and claimed the heavens opened.

## Who they are

To his contemporaries Swedenborg looked like a visionary and an elixir of moonbeams, yet Emerson insists he led the most real life of any man then living. He was a scholar from childhood, a favorite of Charles XII, a working scientist of mines and smelting works — until 1743, when his illumination began and he abandoned science for voluminous theological writing at his own expense. He matters because he represents the mystic type: a man of large calibre whose eccentricity and madness, like Pascal's or Newton's, help us more than balanced mediocre minds.

## In the story

### [I: Uses of Great Men](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/i-uses-of-great-men)

Cited as one who saw that things were representative, and as an example of a magnet made man.

### [Plato; or, the Philosopher](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/ii-plato-or-the-philospher)

Included as one of the thinkers who owes a debt to Plato.

### [Plato: New Readings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/plato-new-readings)

Mentioned as a Platonist throughout his prose poem 'Conjugal Love,' with his subtlety and moral aim commended.

### [Swedenborg; or, the Mystic](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/iii-swedenborg-or-the-mystic)

Central figure of the chapter; presented as the representative mystic with a systematic, visionary mind, but criticized for his later discord and grim cosmology.

### [V: Shakespeare; or, the Poet](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/v-shakespeare-or-the-poet)

Mentioned as a mourner who grope in graves, representing a half-view that the world still needs to transcend.

### [Napoleon; or, the Man of the World](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/vi-napoleon-or-the-man-of-the-world)

His theory that every organ is made of homogeneous particles is used as an analogy to explain how Napoleon represents the masses: if Napoleon is France, it is because the people are little Napoleons.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/characters/swedenborg
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/characters