Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Followers (5,366)

Add New
Videos

1 comment

Add a comment

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Born

in Boston, Massachusetts, The United States

May 25, 1803

Died

April 27, 1882

Genre

Philosophy, Poetry, Essays

Influences

Robert Ingersoll, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Taylor Col ...more

edit data

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau.

The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson. ...more

Combine Editions
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s books

Average rating: 4.05 · 86,594 ratings · 4,846 reviews · 3,421 distinct works • Similar authors

	Self-Reliance and Other Essays 4.12 avg rating — 20,533 ratings — published 1844 — 118 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Essays and Poems 4.01 avg rating — 13,505 ratings — published 1856 — 77 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 9,844 ratings — published 1841 — 301 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nature 3.79 avg rating — 6,502 ratings — published 1836 — 882 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mary Oliver (Introduction), Brooks Atkinson (Editor) 4.37 avg rating — 3,937 ratings — published 1983 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Essays and Lectures 4.31 avg rating — 2,879 ratings — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jean Ferguson Carr (Editor), Alfred R. Ferguson (Editor), Alfred Kazin (Introduction) 4.23 avg rating — 2,712 ratings — published 1844	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nature and Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Larzer Ziff (Introduction) 4.11 avg rating — 2,311 ratings — published 1836 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The American Scholar: Self-Reliance, Compensation 3.70 avg rating — 886 ratings — published 1837 — 52 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Larzer Ziff (Editor) 3.99 avg rating — 670 ratings — published 1876 — 45 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Ralph Waldo Emerson…

Series by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson (4 books)
by

Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Wesley T. Mott (Editor)

4.50 avg rating — 8 ratings

Related News

When Famous Writers Met U.S. Presidents

Journalist and historian Craig Fehrman's new book, Author in Chief, tells the story of America’s presidents as authors—and offers a new window...

Polls

Which writer would you most like to see in a Speedo?

F. Scott Fitzgerald

78 votes, 44.1%

Ralph Waldo Emerson

24 votes, 13.6%

Gertrude Stein

15 votes, 8.5%

Geoffrey Chaucer

13 votes, 7.3%

Cotton Mather

11 votes, 6.2%

Henry Kissinger

10 votes, 5.6%

Jonathan Franzen

9 votes, 5.1%

Pearl S. Buck

9 votes, 5.1%

Glenn Beck

6 votes, 3.4%

Noah Webster

2 votes, 1.1%

177 total votes

14 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Reading with Style: FA10 RwS Completed Tasks	923	432	01 déc. 2010 15:41
The History Book ...: JANE EYRE - BR	41	129	03 mai 2011 02:53
Victorians!: General chit-chat and information (part 2)	751	562	01 oct. 2011 07:16
Romance Readers R...: 2011 A-Z Author Challenge	575	749	18 mar. 2012 09:49
Ladies & Literature: Listopia Star Member Contest!	152	72	23 jan. 2013 01:38
The History Book ...: 16. WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT- AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, CHAPTER 16 (613 - 657) ~ February 11th - February 17th; No Spoilers, Please	19	64	30 mar. 2013 14:58
The Readers Revie...: The Forsyte Saga - Background and Resources	88	70	29 août 2013 17:21
The History Book ...: 1. THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB ~ June 26th ~ June 30th ~~ Part One - Chapters I ~ (3 - 22); Preface ~ (ix - xii) No-Spoilers, please	56	119	06 sept. 2013 19:01

More…