Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, poet and lecturer, and the central figure of New England Transcendentalism. Trained for the Unitarian ministry, he left the pulpit in 1832 and built a career as a lecturer and writer in Concord, Massachusetts. His essay Nature and his addresses at Harvard called for an original relation to the universe, free of inherited creeds. Essays: First Series, which includes 'Self-Reliance', 'Compensation' and 'The Over-Soul', sets out his faith in individual intuition and in the divinity present in nature and in every person.

Key ideas

• Trust thyself: self-reliance means following one's own intuition rather than conformity or tradition.
• Each person shares in a universal 'Over-Soul', the divine unity that underlies all minds.
• Nature is a symbol of spirit, and direct contact with it renews moral and spiritual insight.
• Americans should build an intellectual culture of their own rather than imitate Europe.

Major works

• Essays: First Series (1841)
• Nature (1836)
• The American Scholar (1837)
• Essays: Second Series (1844)
• Representative Men (1850)
• The Conduct of Life (1860)

In the Book corner

• Essays: First Series 1841 · Beginner
  Emerson's first collection of essays, published in 1841, which reworked material from his journals and lectures into twelve pieces: 'History', 'Self-Reliance', 'Compensation',…

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