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1、Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 April 27, 1882) was an American lecturer, philosopher, essayist, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of societ
2、y, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 ess
3、ay, Nature. Following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be Americas Intellectual Declaration of Independence.1 Considered one of the great lecturers of the time, Emerson had an enthusiasm and respect for
4、his audience that enraptured crowds.Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first, then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series, published respectively in 1841 and 1844 represent the core of his thinking, and include s
5、uch well-known essays as Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience. Together with Nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emersons most fertile period.Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developi
6、ng certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for man to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. Emersons nature was more philosophical than naturalistic; Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul.Whil
7、e his writing style can be seen as somewhat impenetrable, and was thought so even in his own time, Emersons essays remain one of the linchpins of American thinking, and Emersons work has influenced nearly every generation of thinker, writer and poet since his time. When asked to sum up his work, he
8、said his central doctrine was the infinitude of the private man.Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 25, 1803,3 son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. He was named after his mothers brother Ralph and the fathers great-grandmother Rebecca Waldo.4 Ralph Wal
9、do was the second of five sons who survived into adulthood; the others were William, Edward, Robert Bulkeley, and Charles.5 Three other childrenPhebe, John Clarke, and Mary Carolinedied in childhood.5The young Ralph Waldo Emersons father died from stomach cancer on May 12, 1811, less than two weeks
10、before Emersons eighth birthday.6 Emerson was raised by his mother, with the help of the other women in the family; his aunt Mary Moody Emerson played an important role. Aunt Mary had a profound effect on Emerson.7 She lived with the family off and on, and maintained a constant correspondence with E
11、merson until her death in 1863.8Emersons formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812 when he was nine.9 In October 1817, at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to fa
12、culty.10 Midway through his junior year, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read and started a journal in a series of notebooks that would be called Wide World.11 He took outside jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher wo
13、rking with his uncle Samuel in Waltham, Massachusetts.12 By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Waldo.13 Emerson served as Class Poet; as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvards Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821, when he was 18.
14、14 He did not stand out as a student and graduated in the exact middle of his class of 59 people.15In 1826, faced with poor health, Emerson went to seek out warmer climates. He first went to Charleston, South Carolina, but found the weather was still too cold.16 He then went further south, to St. Au
15、gustine, Florida, where he took long walks on the beach, and began writing poetry. While in St. Augustine, he made the acquaintance of Prince Achille Murat. Murat, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, was only two years his senior; the two became extremely good friends and enjoyed one anothers company.
16、 The two engaged in enlightening discussions on religion, society, philosophy, and government, and Emerson considered Murat an important figure in his intellectual education.17While in St. Augustine, Emerson had his first experience of slavery. At one point, he attended a meeting of the Bible Society while there was a slave auction taking place in the yard outside. He wrote, One ear therefore heard the glad tiding
