Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson

1803-1882

Father of Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Life “Nature” “The American Scholar” Speech “Divinity School Address” “Self Reliance” “Hymn Sung at the Completion of the

Concord Monument, April 19, 1836”

Emerson’s Famous Quotes

“The only way to have a friend is to be one” “To be great is to be misunderstood” “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,

adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Transcendentalism

Major advocates– Ralph Waldo Emerson– Writer and Naturalist Henry David Thoreau– Educator Bronson Alcott (Louisa May’s

father)– Reverend George Ripley– Publisher Palmer Peabody

Three Beliefs

The universe is connected to the individual through nature

By contemplating nature, one can transcend the world and be united with the “Over-Soul”

One must follow his own intuition and beliefs, no matter how they stray from those of society

I. Universe to Man Connection

From “Divinity School Address”– “The first in time and

the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature…there is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God”

II. Union with the “Over-Soul”

From “Nature”– “The currents of the

Universal Being circulate through me, I am part or parcel of God.”

III. Trust and Follow Yourself

From “Nature”– “If the single man

plant himself indomitably on his own instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.”

Who Was Emerson?

Happily married, upright, kind, and seemingly conventional

Held the VERY unconventional view that reality is derived through intuition, not the senses

Detractor

Herman Melville (Moby Dick and Billy Budd) mocked him in his novel The Confidence of Man as a philosophical fraud

Supporters Thoreau, Walt

Whitman, and Emily Dickenson nearly worshipped him as a fountain of inspiration

           

Background

8 years old when his father, a Unitarian minister, died

Mother took in boarders to save money for her 4 sons to attend college

Earned a degree in divinity from Harvard Married Ellen Tucker in 1829; she died 2 years

later and left him financially secure Married Lydia Jackson in 1834 and began

writing

Important Works

“Nature”“The American Scholar” Speech“Divinity School Address”“Self Reliance”“Hymn Sung at the Completion of

the Concord Monument, April 19, 1836”

“Nature”

Became the manifesto of the Transcendental Club

The way to God’s truth is by communicating with nature, not reason

From “Nature”

“Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration…

I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.

The American Scholar

1837 Speech at Harvard “our intellectual Declaration of

Inependence”…Oliver Wendol Holmes

Divinity School Address

True religion resides within the individual, not Christianity or the Church

Everyone has equal access to the “Divine Spirit”

This enraged the officials at Harvard Divinity School and he was barred from speaking there for 30 years

From “Divinity School Address”

“Meantime, whilst the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition, this, namely; it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it in not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing.”

Self Reliance

Many famous quotes:– Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide– Whoso would be a man, must be a non-

conformist– Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of

your own mind– You will always find those who think they

know what is your duty better than you know it.

Hymn: April 19, 1836

Written for those who fought at the Battle of Concord:

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world

The foe long since in silence slept;Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;And time the ruined bridge has sweptDown the dark stream which seaward

creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,We set today a votive stone;That memory may their deed redeem,When like our sires, our sons are gone.

Emerson, the Beloved

Emerson was so well-loved, that when his house burned down, his friends sent him on a trip to Europe and rebuilt it for him while he was gone.

Some Good Advice…

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

Final Thoughts…

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.”

Emerson

Key intellectual and philosophical voice of the 19th century

Spread the philosophy of Transcendentalism

Propelled individualism to the forefront of the American conscience

First voiced democracy and ordinary experience as unique American themes