Abstract

Born into a Unitarian family, Ralph Waldo Emerson abandoned a formal religious career due to doctrinal doubts, and stands with Thoreau as a representative of the philosophic-literary school of thought known as transcendentalism. Emerson was drawn in this direction partly through his European trip of 1832-3, which featured meetings in England with Coleridge, Wordsworth and other representatives of Romanticism. Emerson's transcendentalism, most fully represented in his 1836 book Nature, involved an emphasis on the unity of nature, science and spirituality, in which transcendent spiritual elements are revealed to us through the beauties of external nature and attentive sensory life, thus meaning that divinity can be seen as immanent in all things; these ideas have notably influenced green thought, especially in the USA. Through a career of 40 years, Emerson gave about 1,500 public lectures, traveling as far as California and Canada but generally staying in Massachusetts. His audiences were captivated by his speaking style. Many of his phrases have long since passed into common English usage, such as "a minority of one" and "the devil's attorney." His essays had a sermon-like quality, which was linked to his practice as a Unitarian minister. Emerson's aim was to encourage people to cultivate "self-trust," to become what they ought to be, and to be open to the intuitive world of experience.

Contents

Introduction3

Biography3

Mission6

Influence and Contribution8

Speeches and Publications13

Conclusion15

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Introduction

Ralph Waldo Emerson was the center of the transcendental movement in America, whose followers believed in the importance of individuality, as well as in a deep connection to nature. Emerson set out most of his ideas and values in the book Nature (1836), which signified at least 10 years of concentrated study in philosophy, literature and religion. His theories, that the human mind is influenced by nature, assisted ignite a totally novel philosophical movement in Britain. He called for the dawn of individualism in America instigated by nature. As a great prose poet, he influenced number of other American poets, including Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. He is also gained the fame for influencing the work of many renowned philosophers in which name of Friedrich Nietzsche is noteworthy to mention.

Biography

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, the son of a Unitarian minister with Puritan ancestors. After his father's early death, Emerson was reared by his mother and by an aunt, Mary Moody Emerson, who guided Emerson's spiritual and educational development. Emerson began writing in his youth and kept journals at Harvard University that became the basis of his most famous essays and poems. After teaching at a school for young women for two years, he entered Harvard's divinity school. An undisciplined student, Emerson nevertheless completed his studies and became a popular preacher at Boston's Second Church. In 1829 he married Ellen Tucker.

Ellen Emerson died in 1831, and the following year Emerson resigned from his position in the church, no longer a believer in its doctrines and yearning for another kind of faith. He toured Europe in 1832 and 1833 and met the English Romantic writers Thomas Carlyle; William Wordsworth; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who turned Emerson's attention to German Idealism and to ...