Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the premier writers of American Literature, ushering in the Romantic era associated with some of America’s greatest writers and poets. Known mostly for his work regaling individualism and transcendentalism, Emerson was one of the first well-known American authors to widely pan religion. Instead, Emerson focused on nature, philosophy, individuality, and freedom in his writing.
Emerson was born in Boston in 1803, the son of a minister. At the age of 8, Emerson’s father passed away from cancer, leaving Ralph and his siblings to be raised by his mother and his aunt. His formal schooling began at the age of 9, during which time he was just an average student. At the age of 18, Ralph Waldo Emerson graduated from Harvard College in the middle of his class.
Upon graduation, Emerson returned to Harvard Divinity College where he trained to be a minister, as his father and brother had before him. At the age of 24, he married his first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker. However, two years after their marriage, Ellen died from tuberculosis. The tragic loss of his wife led Emerson to begin questioning his belief in God, and religion in general. This lead to many of his forward thinking ideas regarding transcendentalism and individualism.
From the mid 1830s to the mid 1840s, Ralph Waldo Emerson posted the greatest body of his well-known work, most of which was originally written in the form of lectures and later rewritten as essays. In September of 1836, Emerson’s first essay, Nature, was published. Emerson drew inspiration for the essay from the fastidious way plants were arranged at the estate of Voltaire when he visited Europe. The moment was huge for Emerson, and literature in general, as it was the beginning of a movement away from religion and toward science. A year later, Emerson delivered a lecture to Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, which was later renamed “An American Scholar” and self-published. The essay sold out within a month’s time.
Emerson forged a friendship with other well known American writers, particularly Henry David Thoreau, and formed a society known as the Transcendental Group. These forward-thinkers began publishing regularly, in a journal called The Dial. This progressive group of writers permanently altered the way we view literature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is a writer who began as somebody who didn’t really stand out. He suffered through loss and tragedy, beginning at a very young age, yet managed to use this tragedy to shape the face of literature forever. He evolved from somebody who was merely an adequate student into an eloquent speaker and writer. His unique perspective on nature, science, and religion helped to change not just literature, but society as well, and helped usher in a new era of writers and free thinkers in the United States.