Introduction to Ralph Waldo Emerson by Samantha Zivic
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
By Samantha Zivic
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803 In Boston, Massachusetts. Early on in his life, Emerson pursued a life of ministry as a Unitarian—following in the footsteps of his father who died when Ralph was only eight years old. For his formal training, he attended the Harvard Divinity School. In 1829 he married Ellen (his first wife), but she passed away less than two years later. This death had a profound impact on Emerson. He began to question the teachings of his faith as well as religion in general—causing him to resign his ministry in 1832. To support his recovery, he went to Europe and travelled to a variety of countries including Malta, Italy, France, and England (where he met Thomas Carlyle what was a significant influence on the development of his ideas). Many years later, he would publish a work entitled “English Trails” (1856) that detailed his travels during this period.
Throughout his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered over 1,500 speeches and lectures. No doubt, this was influenced by his initial career path as a minister where the written word is crafted ultimately to be delivered as the spoken word. In fact, the majority of essays that Emerson wrote during his career were first developed as lectures and later tweaked further to fit into his many written word essays, collections, and even poems.
Emerson’s first essay “Nature” was initially published anonymously in 1836. This document is considered by many to be the foundation upon which the American Transcendentalism movement was built. In it, Emerson speaks at length about nature and the oneness of all things. This passage touches on this philosophy of life:
Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobbler’s trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar’s garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world.
Not only does this passage speak of the interconnectedness that Emerson and the American Transcendentalists often spoke of, it also can be interpreted as a somewhat anti-religious world view. From this perspective, one need not believe in a single deity or belief system; instead, all of creation exists ultimately for you and you for it. Later in life, Emerson would be accused of being an atheist on more than one occasion because of these kinds of teachings.
Soon after, Emerson delivered his “The American Scholar” speech at Harvard where he advocated that America should not simply be a follower—it should develop and possess its own body of knowledge. Emerson believes that the ultimate purpose and duty of the scholar is to “Man Think.” As he puts it:
In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.
Emerson believed that a person could not be made whole unless they were a free and independent thinker. It is not enough to just learn and study and read books (as “bookworms”); thinking is the essence of what makes Man man. This resonated on multiple levels—not just Man being independent thinkers amongst one another but also in the context of the group of emerging American intellectual thinkers being independent from the Old World thinking of England. In many ways, this notion is the spark that launched the American Renaissance in literature and thought.
Among other friends and collaborations, Emerson struck up a friendship with Margaret Fuller in 1835. Fuller was the first significant feminist voice in the American Transcendentalist movement. Together, they published “The Dial”—a magazine that focused on transcendentalist thought which became a vehicle to spread their world view to a larger and larger audience.
Henry David Thoreau was another literary figure that crossed paths with Emerson. All of his life, Emerson kept extensive daily journals. Emerson once asked Thoreau, “Do you keep a journal?” It is said that this singular question served as a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau whose later “journals” went on to include “Walden”, perhaps inspired by the challenge of Emerson and, ironically, also written in a cabin on land owned by Emerson himself. Emerson’s collection of journals (16 large volumes) was later published as an actual collection … and many scholars believe them to be his most significant literary contribution.
In later years, Emerson’s health began to decline. Near the end, he even began to rethink some of his beliefs and positions on American Transcendentalism. But then again, is it that surprising that someone who set about to “Man Think” all of his life might also come up with newer and better ideas than the ones he originally thought about and shared with others?
Ralph Waldo Emerson died of pneumonia on April 21, 1882 in Concord, Massachusetts.
Review Questions:
Do the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson resonate with you today? Compare his style to other authors of that same period.
What is meant by the term “Man Think?”
In what way did Emerson influence the American writers who came after him?
Text included with the permission of the author.
Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson: By Josiah Johnson Hawes – https://collections.eastman.org/objects/28550/ralph-waldo-emerson?ctx=40feaa18-c1ab-482e-b861-5102792e93c3&idx=13, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116946215