Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on 25 May 1803 and died on 27 April 1882. He was an American lecturer, essayist, poet, and philosopher. In the mid-nineteenth century, he was the founding member of the transcendentalist movement in America. He advocated individualism against the pressure of society and became a clairvoyant critic of it. He wrote dozens of essays and delivered more than 1500 public lectures across the country to disseminate his thoughts.
Emerson boycotted contemporary social and religious beliefs. In 1836, he formulated his philosophy of transcendentalism in his most famous essay, “Nature.” After the publication of the essay, he delivered a speech in 1837, titled “The American Scholar.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. regarded this speech as America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence.” Emerson was also an important member of the Romantic movement of America. A great number of writers, thinkers, and poets have been greatly influenced by his philosophy and works.
A Short Biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the Rev. William Emerson and Ruth Haskins. His father was a Unitarian minister. Ralph had four siblings: Edward, William, Charles, and Robert Bulkeley. They survived into adulthood with Ralph Waldo, whereas the other three – Phebe, Mary Caroline, and John Clarke – died in childhood. The ancestry of Emerson was completely English. They had been living in New England since the colonial period started.
On 12 May 1811, the father of Emerson died because of stomach cancer. At that time, Emerson was almost eight years old. With the help of other women of the family, Emerson’s mother raised him. He had been greatly influenced by his aunt Mary Moody Emerson. She had often been living with his family and was in touch with Emerson until she died in 1863.
In 1812, at the age of nine, Emerson started his schooling at the Boston Latin School. He then went to Harvard College in 1817 and was appointed as the messenger for the president. He was required to raise negligent students and deliver messages to faculty. In the same years, Emerson started writing a list of the books he had already read, and in a series of notebooks, he started a journal “Wide World.”
To cover his expenses, he sought some jobs that included a waiter for Junior Commons and occasional teacher at Waltham, Massachusetts. When he was in senior year, he started using his middle name, “Waldo.” He also served the Class Poet and presented his original poem on the Class Day, at the age of 18. He graduated in September 1821.
In 1826, Emerson’s health was getting poor. He decided to go to a place of a warmer climate. First, he went to Charleston; however, the weather was cold, which does not suit him. Then he went to St. Augustine, Florida. Over there, he would take long walks on the beach and start writing poetry. He also became a good friend of Prince Achille Murat, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, in St. Augustine. Murat and Emerson would often discuss society, religion, government, and philosophy. Emerson regarded Murat as the most significant influencer and intellectual educator.
In 1829, he married Ellen Tucker. However, she was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and died in 1831. Her death made him skeptical of faith, and he resigned from his job of the clergy.
He traveled to Europe in 1832. There he met with well-known literary figures William Wordsworth, S.T Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle. He returned in 1833 and started delivering lectures of spiritualism; in 1834, he shifted to Concord, Massachusetts, and married Lydia in 1835.
In the 1830s, he delivered some lectures that he later published in the essay form. These essays were the basis of his transcendental philosophy. Moreover, his lecture “The American Scholar” in 1837 motivated American authors to be more distinctive in their own art than following the foreigners.
In the 1840s, he founded his own magazine, “The Dial,” and published his two volumes of essays. The most well-known essay was published in these years. Moreover, his four children were also born in these years. In the 1850s, he advocated the idea of nonconformity and abolition of slavery. In the 1870s, Emerson was well known as “the sage of Concord.” He died in 1882 in concord.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Writing Style
In the mid-nineteenth century and twentieth century, the works of Emerson were the most read and frequently quoted. His works were based on the entirely new ideas of transcendentalism and mysticism that captured the attention of the readers of his time and audience of his lectures. In fact, his ideas also continue to influence the readers of the 21st century. In his writings, Emerson focuses on his idealistic philosophies and the true relationship of man with God and nature.
Emerson’s rich expression and keen observation made him one of the best prose writers of the century. Though he, most of the time, emphasizes on the obscure and complex concepts, his writing keeps directness, clarity, and careful development of new ideas. He elucidates difficult ideas with metaphor and analogy. He moves his ideas from the perceptions of an individual to the broad generalization that bends the readers.
The way Emerson constructs his sentences and phases engages the readers as if he has not written it on the piece of paper but is speaking it to them. This impression is strengthened by his use of common words and maxims in his works. His language and emotions attained the peak of expression with his rhetorical style.
His poetry is also based on the same major themes as found in his essays and speeches. The crescendos and cadences in the essays parallel the rise and fall of the intensity of emotions in the poetry. His poetry is stylistically unique and different from the poetry of contemporary poets.
Various things greatly influenced Emerson’s writing. The most significant among them were Unitarianism, New England Calvinism, the Neo-Platonists, Plato’s writings, Carlyle, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Swedenborg, Montaigne, and eastern sacred texts. However, his ideas he put in his lectures and essays were totally his own what we now called “American Transcendentalism.”
Characteristics of Emerson’s work
He talks about the truth of man, God, nature, and existence in most of his works. He considers man as an expression of God, thus elevating the dignity and significance of man. In his essay “Nature,” he writes that the “Supreme Being,” i.e., God is the spirit who does not create nature around men.
However, he put nature into view through men, just like the new branches and tree of the trees put forth by the life of the tree through an old pore. The way plants breathe upon the bosom of Earth, a man also breathes on the “bosom of God.” Man is sustained by consistent cascades, and pulls, at his need, unlimited power. Who can put restrictions on the potentials of a man? He says that it is the man who can get access to the mind of the Creator; even he himself is the creator with some restrictions.
Emerson’s outlook was highly humanistic and challenged the beliefs of the Calvinistic tradition of New England that formed the remote sovereignty of God.
Emerson not only made humanity to believe in the oneness of God but made them obey him without questionings. He was in view that all men are equal in worth and capacity. To measure the value of an individual based on his social status and human hierarchies is baseless, Emerson says. In his essay “Nature” (Chapter VIII; Prospects), Emerson wrote that it is either Adam or Caesar; everyone is equal.
Whatever Adam had, and whatever Caesar could do, an ordinary man can also have it and do it. Adam would call his house earth and heaven, whereas Caesar would call it Rome, you can have your house, what if it is called as Cobbler’s trade; it does not matter how much amount of and you have, or of what worth, if you have your own dominion, it is as worth as theirs though it does not have a fine name. Therefore, build your own world.
The notion of equality among men and the idea that God equally creates all men, thus all processes divinity is a degree, were strongly appealing to the contemporary readers as they are in the 21st century. The idea of democracy that Emerson gave in his works is more basic and does not promote any social or political system.
Moreover, it reinforced the claim of the individual to be respected by philosophy; therefore, highlighting the extraordinary abilities of humans in the framework of the whole of humanity. For Emerson, those men who had achieved peculiarity in some ways are the representatives of human abilities. In his speech “The American Scholar,” he asserts that the building up of a man is the main initiative of the world for magnitude and grandeur.
He says that the personal life of the individual should be his more renowned dominion suggesting to be harsh for its enemy; however, to influence his friends, it must be sweet and serene, that any monarchy in history. If one man is perceived rightly, it comprehends the nature of all men. “Each philosopher, each bard, each actor, has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself.”
He was greatly charmed by both positive and negative characteristics of various extraordinary individuals. His collection of “Representative Essay” contains the lectures and essays on Plato, Montaigne, Swedenborg, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Napoleon.
However, he does not focus only on the positive attributes but on the negative as well, suggesting the abilities and aspirations of the whole of humanity. In his essay “Uses of Great Men,” he writes that the people whom we call masses and common men; in fact, they are not the common man. Every man has hidden talents, and true art is only possible if a man has strong beliefs that somewhere his art will be admired at best. “Fair play, and an open field, and freshest laurels to all who have won them!”
However, heaven has reserved an equal possibility for every creature. Each is uncomfortable till he has formed his reserved gleam unto the “concave sphere,” and also witnessed his ability in its last decency and adulation.
He also talks about the restriction imposed on an individual by society, civilization, materialism, and institutions that greatly affect the abilities of individuals. He says that the limitations imposed by these institutions do not work to highlight the distinctiveness among men. However, they suppress the self-realization of the individual.
Emerson’s view of the essential link between the man, God, and nature made him exalt the status of the individual.
According to him, man is more capable of insight, imagination, and morality; however, his abilities stem from his close association with a greater, sophisticated entity than himself.
In the essay “The Over-Soul,” Emerson focuses on his mans’ indispensable harmony with the divine that man is a spiritual being. The way there is “no ceiling” or “screen” between the heavens and the heads of man, there is no wall or stopping point where we can point out starting and ending points of effect, the man, and God, the cause. The walls have been removed, and man is lying open to the spiritual nature, which are the attributes of God.
Emerson also talks about the inconsistency between daily life experiences and philosophy, particularly in his essay “Experience.” In his career and writings, he examined a range of subjects. It includes poetry and poets, history, education, art, society, reforms, politics, and the individual’s life. He examined all these subjects in the framework of transcendentalism.
