Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Ralph Waldo Emerson Properly Acknowledged

by

Ralph Waldo Emerson certainly took his place in the history

of American Literature . He lived in a time when romanticism was becoming

a way of thinking and beginning to bloom in America, the time period known

as The Romantic Age. Romantic thinking stressed on human imagination and

emotion rather than on basic facts and reason. Ralph Waldo Emerson not only

provided plenty of that, but he also nourished it and inspired many other

writers of that time. “His influence can be found in the works of Henry David

Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and

Robert Frost.”. No doubt, Ralph Waldo Emerson was an astute and intellectual

man who influenced American Literature and has rightly received the credit

that he deserves from historians. He has been depicted as a leading figure

in American thought and literature, or at least ranks up there with the very

best. But there is so much more to Ralph Waldo Emerson when we consider the

personal hardships that he had to endure during the course of his life and

when we see the type of man that he becomes. He certainly was a man of

inspiration who knew how to express himself by writing the best of poems

and philosophical ideas with inspiration. To get an idea of how Ralph Waldo Emerson might have become

such an inspiration to the people, some background on his life is essential.

Can you imagine living a life with all your loved ones passing away one by

one? A persons life could collapse into severe depression, lose hope, and

lose meaning. He can build a morbid outlook on life. Ralph Waldo Emerson

suffered these things. He was born on May 25, 1803 and entered into a new

world, a new nation just beginning. Just about eight years later, his father

would no longer be with him, as William Emerson died in 1811. The Emerson

family was left to a life marked by poverty. Ralph’s mother, Ruth, was left

as a widow having to take care of five sons. However, Ralph’s life seemed

to carry on smoothly. He would end up attending Harvard College and persue

a job of teaching full time. While teaching as a junior pastor of Boston’s

Second Church, his life gained more meaning when he married Ellen Louisa

Tucker. Journal entries and love letters he wrote at that time expressed

lots of feelings and emotions that he had. But after two short years of marriage,

Ellen died of tuberculosis. Suddenly, the one true person he had in his life

was gone. Life was losing it’s meaning, and Ralph Waldo Emerson was in need

of some answers. This dark period drove him to question his beliefs. Emerson

resigned from the Second Church and his profession as a pastor in search

for vital truth and hope. But his father and wife were not the only deaths

that he had to deal with. His strength and endurance would be put to the

test much further with a perennial line of loved ones dying. His brother

Edward, died in 1834, Charles in 1836, and his son Waldo (from his second

wife Lydia Jackson) in 1842. After such a traumatic life, you might expect

that Emerson, like any other person,would collapse into severe depression,

lose hope, and lose meaning to his life. But Emerson was different. He found

the answers within himself and rebounded into a mature man.

After surviving a mentally hard life, Ralph Waldo Emerson

seemed to gain more discernment toward life. Wisdom is gained through experience.

By 1835, Emerson’s rare and extravagant spirit was ready to be unleashed.

All his deep feelings, emotions, and thoughts fabricated truth the way he

arrived at truth, within himself. “To believe your own thought, to believe

that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men- that

is genius. Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense;

for always the inmost becomes the outmost-and our first thought is rendered

back to us by the trumpets of the last judgment.” Emerson fully believed

this and supported it by taking part in a new philosophical movement called

Transcendentalism. In 1836, his first boot, Nature, was published. Nature

expressed the main points of Transcendentalism. With this, Ralph Waldo Emerson

started the Transcendental Club the same year. This club published a magazine

called The Dial, fully promulgating philosophy, literature, and Emerson’s

truth fearlessly. He was starting to gain recognition. The young were opening

their minds, and the old were impressed. Harvard was so impressed of him

that ther asked him to give several addresses. In 1837, he gave a well-known

address called “The American Scholar” in which he outlined his philosophy

of humanism. A year later, he gave another address, called “The Divinity

School Address.” This argued about Christianity at that time for being too

traditional and ritualistic in its ways. These methods didn’t fill the people’s

spiritual need. Emerson showed his liking under a new religion founded by

nature. Truly, by the crowds that he drew, Emerson refreshed the minds, of

people who were thirsting for some truth. And who better to provide this

than Emerson himself, who, through many distresses, searched within himself

and became a man with life again.

This man, of inspiration, full of truth, goodness, and

beauty became a part of classic American literature. His expressions were

absorbed into some of the most exceptional essays, poems, and philosophical

ideas ever created. His famous essays are “History,” “Art,” “The Poet,” and

the famous “Self-Reliance.” He gathered his essays into two volumes. The

first was released in 1841, and the second was released in 1844. Poems however,

also made Emerson’s reputation as a erudite man. His poems were enjoyable

as well as thought provoking to many. “Each and All,” was a poem that supported

his beliefs. “The Rhodora,” as well as “The Humble Bee,” and “The Snow Storm,”

touched on the greatness of nature. Emerson also expressed himself through

poems such as “Uriel,” “The Problem,” “The Sphinx,” and the well-known “Days.”

Many of these works of Emerson have taken there place in the history of American

literature.

Thus, we now see what truly a great man Emerson was. We

gain a deep respect for him when we consider the hardships that he had to

face, how he endured those problems, and the minds that he opened and touched

by his wonderful works. In conclusion, we can truly say that Emerson is well

deserving of the credit he received from historians.