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Ralph Waldo Emerson

RALF WAW-doh EM-er-son (he went by his middle name, Waldo, from boyhood)
Also Known As Waldo Emerson
American Literature

American essayist, lecturer and poet, the central figure of New England Transcendentalism and the writer most credited with giving the American essay its own voice, distinct from the British model. A former Unitarian minister who resigned his Boston pulpit in 1832, he reached most readers through the essay collections Essays: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), and gave early, decisive public support to Walt Whitman on the strength of the 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass.

Facts
Birth Year
1803 1
Birth Date
1803-05-25 2
Death Year
1882 1
Death Date
1882-04-27 2
Award
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1
Classification
Original Language
English 1
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Filter Results8 entries
Connections

Associated With

Both part of the Concord Transcendentalist circle.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Emerson owned the Walden Pond land Thoreau built his cabin on and urged him to keep a journal.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Fuller edited The Dial 1840-1842; Emerson succeeded her as editor 1842-1844.

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Essay, Forms
Source The Norton Anthology of World Literature

Correspondents and friends from their 1833 meeting in Scotland until Carlyle death in 1881; Emerson arranged the first American edition of Sartor Resartus (Boston, 1836).

Source Simon Heffer, Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle (1995)Simon Heffer

In Genre

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

In Movement

Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)

Influenced

Walt Whitman, Authors

Emerson to Whitman, 21 July 1855, on receiving the first edition of Leaves of Grass.

Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, letter to Walt Whitman, 21 July 1855

Works Attributed

Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Address Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge (1838)
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series (1841)
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: Second Series (1844)
Nature, Works
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men (1850)
Self-Reliance, Works
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series (1841)
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar (1837)
Source Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life (1860)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wikipedia
  • Original language statement
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803, April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.
  • Lead paragraph
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803, April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity.
  • Award: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803, April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and critical thinking, as well as a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society and conformity.
View the Source
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, letter to Walt Whitman, 21 July 1855
Influenced: Walt Whitman
Quote, Influenced: Walt Whitman
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start.
Simon Heffer, Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle (1995)
Simon Heffer, 1995Associated With: Thomas Carlyle
The Norton Anthology of World Literature
W. W. Norton & CompanyAssociated With: The Essay

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