RALPH WALDO EMERSON

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BIRTH/DEATH

• Born: May 25, 1803 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
• Died: April 27, 1882 (aged 78)Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.

Family background/ Education:
He was the son of William and Ruth (Haskins) Emerson; his father was a clergyman, as many of his male ancestors had been. He attended the Boston Latin School, followed by Harvard University (from which he graduated in 1821) and the Harvard School of Divinity. He was licensed as a minister in 1826 and ordained to the Unitarian church in 1829.

Emerson married Ellen Tucker in 1829. When she died of tuberculosis in 1831, he was grief-stricken. Her death, added to his own recent crisis of faith, caused him to resign from the clergy.

How did he get started in writing?
In 1832 Emerson traveled to Europe, where he met with literary figures Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. When he returned home in 1833, he began to lecture on topics of spiritual experience and ethical living.

Emerson’s early preaching had often touched on the personal nature of spirituality. Now he found kindred spirits in a circle of writers and thinkers who lived in Concord, including Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau and Amos Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott).
In the 1830s Emerson gave lectures that he afterward published in essay form. These essays, particularly “Nature” (1836), embodied his newly developed philosophy. “The American Scholar,” based on a lecture that he gave in 1837, encouraged American authors to find their own style instead of imitating their foreign predecessors.

WHAT TYPES OF WRITING DID HE DO?

Best works:
-Emerson’s first book, Nature (1836)
-“Self-Reliance"(essay)
- "Life of Carlyle"
-Representative Men
-The Conduct of Life (1860)
- English Traits (1865 )

Interest facts:
1 ) Ralph Waldo Emer­son was a leader in the Tran­scen­den­tal­ism move­ment in America.
2 ) At the age of 14, Emer­son was the youngest stu­dent in his class at Har­vard. He grad­u­ated from Har­vard Divin­ity School as a Uni­tar­ian minister.
3 ) Emer­son left the Uni­tar­ian church in 1832 due to philo­soph­i­cal differences.
4 ) Ahead of his time, Emer­son was both a sup­porter of the suf­frage and abo­li­tion­ists movements.

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5 ) Most of Emerson’s impor­tant essays were first writ­ten as lec­tures and then revised for print.
6 ) Emer­son was dis­ap­pointed that Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln cared more about pre­serv­ing the union than free­ing the slaves. His views about the Pres­i­dent soften after a meet­ing on 1 Feb­ru­ary 1862 at the White House and even spoke at a memo­r­ial ser­vice held for Lin­coln in Concord.
7) Towards the end of his life, Emer­son suf­ferned from mem­ory loss. Once he even for­got the name of the per­son who was buried dur­ing a funeral. That per­son was dear friend Henry Wadsworth Longfel­low.

Criticism quotes:
-“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
-“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

-“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Sources:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12080.Ralph_Waldo_Emerson
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/ralph-waldo-emerson
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/riff-ralph-waldo-emerson.html?pa...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/emerson.html