Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was an American essayist, lecturer and poet, the leader of the Transcendentalist movement. In Nature and in essays such as Self-Reliance and The American Scholar, he called on Americans to trust their own intuition and to create a culture of their own. His influence on American thought was immense.
Works
Essays: First Series, Poems
From pulpit to lecture hall
Emerson was born in Boston in 1803, the son of a Unitarian minister who died when Ralph was a boy. He studied at Harvard and became a minister himself in 1829. The same year he married Ellen Tucker, who died of tuberculosis eighteen months later.
Troubled by doubts about the rituals of the church, he resigned his post in 1832 and travelled to Europe, where he met Coleridge, Wordsworth and Thomas Carlyle, who became a lifelong friend. On his return he settled in Concord and began a career as a lecturer.
Nature and the Transcendentalists
In 1836 Emerson published Nature, a short book arguing that each person can find truth and the divine directly in nature and in their own soul. It became the manifesto of a group of writers and reformers known as the Transcendentalists.
His address The American Scholar, delivered at Harvard in 1837, was called America's intellectual declaration of independence. His Essays of 1841 and 1844, including Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul and The Poet, made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic.
The sage of Concord
Emerson supported young writers: he encouraged Thoreau, lent him the land at Walden, and wrote to Walt Whitman to praise the first edition of Leaves of Grass. He lectured all over the United States, travelling thousands of miles a year, and became an outspoken opponent of slavery.
His later works include Representative Men, English Traits and The Conduct of Life. In old age his memory failed. He died in Concord in 1882 and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, near Thoreau and Hawthorne.
Anecdotes
Ellen's tomb
More than a year after the death of his young wife Ellen, Emerson recorded in his journal that he had visited her tomb and opened the coffin. The episode reveals the depth of a grief that helped push him to leave the ministry.
The house fire
In 1872 Emerson's house in Concord was badly damaged by fire. His neighbours rescued his books and papers, and friends raised money to rebuild the house while he travelled to Europe and Egypt with his daughter. He was welcomed home by the whole town.
Frequently asked questions
What is Transcendentalism?
A philosophical and literary movement in New England in the 1830s and 1840s which held that truth can be reached through intuition and nature rather than tradition, and that the individual is essentially good.
What are Emerson's most famous essays?
Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul and Circles (1841), and Experience and The Poet (1844).
What was Emerson's relationship with Thoreau?
Emerson was Thoreau's mentor and friend; Thoreau lived in his house for a time and built his cabin at Walden on Emerson's land.