Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803-1882)

o Most influential American writer of 19th

o Inspiration of: David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller,
Walt Whitman

Because of his call for an American writer

whose poetry “speaks somewhat wildly”
Biography

oBorn in Boston
oFather: Unitarianism minister
oStudy theology at Harvard university
o1829 became junior pastor of Boston’s second church
and promoted by the end of the month as pastor
Influenced by William Ellery Channing
• 1820 Channing accepted bible as revelation of gods
intention but he no longer believed human being as
innately “evil”.
• Emerson influenced by him and higher criticism of
German
• Jodeo-Christian bible as an historical document,
miracles in bible as something like myth
Crisis
oPersonal crisis:
His first wife died
oSpiritual crisis:
Full-fleged disillusionment with being pastor and
Unitarianism
He resigned in 1832
Went to Europe and met: Walter Savage Landor,
Samuel Taylor Cloridge, William Wordsworth
and Thomas Carlyle.
Became lecturer
Books
oNature
After getting married to Lydia Jackson
Not Christian book
About philosophy, from Plato to European Romantics
Achieved smaller audience
oEssays (1841)
Beginning of his reputation
oExperience (1842)
His 5 year old son died (strengthen his skepticism)
Conclusion: You have to act no matter how tragic the world is.
Books
oThe poet (1844)
Try hard to deal with aesthetic issued (the argument makes its meter)
-> Whitman break the tradition of poetry and invent “open form”
oEnglish traits
In his second tour of Europe
Accepted racial differences but reject it in 1855(regarded slavery as
abhorrent)
Journal
oHe also had some journals called them “my saving banks”
oIn journal entry he wrote: