Essay, Research Paper: Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Born May, 25, Ralph Waldo Emerson came from a long line of merchants on his mother's side and preachers on his father's side. It is possibly this unique conglomeration of life experiences that lead Emerson to be possibly one of the greatest and most influential essayists and thinkers of all time.
Emerson was taught at a very young age not to be dependent on others (a corner stone in his transcendental beliefs) but rather to believe in himself. His grandfather once said, "I pray every night that none of my descendants might ever be rich." As a boy, Emerson was serious and some what withdrawn from the world of play. He did not interact with other children with the exception of his three brothers who were all very close. Emerson's first experience with a teacher like figure was his aunt, Mary Moody. She said he was born to be educated. Mary always expressed her greatest joy that Ralph would be a scholar or orator of some kind. Emerson credits Mary with being able to stimulate his intelligence in that direction. Ralph Waldo Emerson was always placed in the best scholastic environment available to him, which is ironic because later Emerson says education comes from personal experience rather than what a text book says. After several independent private schools and college prepatory schools, Emerson entered Harvard. Emerson later says of Harvard, " It has done little for me on the whole." If this is true at least Harvard is where he says his, "...mind commenced its characteristic and beautiful activity." Over the years Emerson became interested in the church and eventually enrolled in divinity school. In 1829 Emerson married seventeen year old Ellen Tucker, however seven months later, she died of "consumption." With Ellen's death, Emerson's and most tender and loving relationship was lost. It is possible that this tragedy was a mitigating factor in Emerson's satirical summation of humanity. A year later with the words, "I have sometimes thought that in order to be a good minister it is necessary to leave the ministry." Emerson broke ties with the church.
After removing himself from the church Ralph Waldo Emerson traveled to Europe. While there he studied great authors such as Coleridge and John Stuart Mill. Through German Idealism, Emerson arrived at a set of ideas he would practice and educate if the opportunity ever presented itself. These ideas were the building blocks of Transcendentalism. This small hope that he would some how be able to practice Transcendentalism was Emerson's inspiration to reform. Emerson's greatest display of Transcendentalism was an article titled, "Self-Reliance." This article portrayed a man's basic responsibilities to live life for ones self and not to please others. "Envy is ignorance, Imitation is suicide." Emerson's goal was to educate and make people more aware. His 'pupils' included Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau. While "Self-Reliance" was an important piece of Emerson's ideology, Nature, Emerson's first book was effective where it should be, in the minds of those who were beginning to think like Emerson. It was both, "...welcomed and damned as the first clear blast of New England's Transcendental horn." Ralph Waldo Emerson was deemed to be so controversial his ideas are still questioned today. Such controversial ideas include, "I declare [the church] dead and helpless, and call upon the future ministers who sit before me to consider what kind of awakening they must undergo before they can hope to touch the living world."
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Reform turned out very well. He gained a lot of respect through out the world, though I doubt this was his intent. Emerson would be happy to know that even today we educate ourselves with his teachings. Self-Reliance is obviously a valuable thing, but it can also be a very damaging thing if a person is extreme enough to use out drastic measures. For example, Ted Kazinsky, better known as the "unibomber," was technically a transcendentalist, although extreme. Is the line crossed when lives are taken? Emerson would take comfort that we ask questions like this because, "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." A pretty profound thought for someone who had always referred to himself as a simple poet.