Podaru Alexandru An II, grupa 2 My Favourite American - Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the light

of day on May 25, 1803, to the Reverend William and Ruth Haskins Emerson. William was the pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Boston, chaplain of the Massachusetts Senate and an editor of Monthly Anthology, a literary review. Its easy to understand the genetic material that Ralph Waldo inherited. His father once described two-year-old son Waldo as "a rather dull scholar. He called him Waldo as would everybody else during his life, and he took that identity for granted signing his checks with the name Waldo. William Emerson died in 1811 from stomach cancer, leaving his family in a state of near-poverty. Little Waldo was raised by his mother and Mary Moody Emerson, an aunt whose acute, critical intelligence would have a lifelong influence on him. Through the persistence of these two women, he completed studies at the Boston Public Latin School. In 1817,he got a Harvard college scholaship and during the holydays between years of study he taught at school. He was not brilliant student, he didnt make much of an impression upon colleagues and teachers. In 1821, he graduated thirteenth in his class of 1959, and he was elected class poet only after six other students declined the honor. During his staying at Harvard he began writing his journals. Once having finished his studies at Harvard, Emerson moved to Boston to teach at his brother William's School for Young Ladies and began to experiment with fiction and verse. He quit his position at the School for Young Ladies in 1825 and he entered Harvard Divinity School; one year later, he received his master's degree, which qualified him to preach. An ilness occured in his life, namely tuberculosis, and in the fall of 1827 he went to Georgia and Florida in hopes of improving his health. Emerson returned to Boston in late December, where he preached occasionally. He met his future wife , Ellen Tucker, in Concord, New Hampshire, a seventeenyear-old poet who also suffered from tuberculosis. The two were married in September 1829, just after Emerson had been ordained pastor of the Second Unitarian Church of Boston. Even though they had a very happy marriage unfortunately it didnt last too long as she died of tuberculosis in 1831, after only two years of marriage and Emerson was once again by himself.

Emerson resigned his position of pastor at the Second Unitarian Church at the end of the year that followed. Among his reasons for resigning were his refusal to administer the sacrament of the Last Supper, which he believed to be an unnecessary theological rite, and his belief that the ministry was an "antiquated profession." On Christmas Day, 1832, he left for Europe. He was so ill that very few actually gave him chances of surviving the long voyage to the old continent. In Europe, he met many of the leading thinkers of his time, including the economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose Aids to Reflection Emerson admired; the poet William Wordsworth; and Thomas Carlyle, the historian and social critic, with whom Emerson established a lifelong friendship. After the European experience, in the fall of 1833, Emerson returned to his homeland where he began his career as a lecturer with a speech he held in Boston. One of his first lectures, "The Uses of Natural History," attempted to humanize science by explaining that "the whole of Nature is a metaphor or image of the human mind." This is one of the ideas that persist and can be found everywhere in his lifetime work. Other lectures followed on diverse subjects such as Italy, biography, English literature, the philosophy of history, and human culture. In the fall of the year that followed, Emerson moved to Concord, Massachusetts, as a boarder in the home of his step-grandfather, Ezra Ripley. There he married for the second time, with Lydia Jackson, a young woman from Pymouth and together they moved into their own home in Concord, a home that they would have until the end of their lives. Nature, which is Emersons first book was published anonymously in 1836. He tried to put there he whole substance of his thought and even though it is only a slim volume it managed to reach its purpose. It was not very succesful, on the contrary, it sold very poorly after twelve years, its first edition of 500 copies had not yet sold out. His second book however, The American Scholar, the Phi Beta Kappa address that Emerson presented at Harvard in 1837, was very popular and, when printed, sold well. Only at a year distance of this event, he went back to his former school, namely at Harvard Divinity School, where he had been invited to speak to the graduating class. The speech he delivered then advocated intuitive, personal revelation and created such an uproar that he was not invited back to his alma mater for thirty years. That was what caused Amos Bronson Alcott to say about that period of his life: "Emerson's church consists of one member himself.

In the years that followed, Emerson joined the Transcendental Club, and in the ensuing years the group, which included Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Alcott, met often at his home. He helped in the launch of a newspaper , The Dial, in 1840. This was a journal of literature, philosophy, and religion that focused on transcendentalist views. Only after two years of activity, he succeeded Fuller as its editor.Officialy, The Dial was recognized as the voice of transcendentalism, and Emerson became intimately associated with the movement. Still, after only four years of activity the newspaper ceased its activity. The first complete edition of essays was published in 1841, a carefully constructed collection of some of his best-remembered writings, including "Self-Reliance" and "The Over-Soul." A second series of Essays in 1844 would firmly establish his reputation as an authentic American voice. Unfortunately, after many succeses , a tragedy occures iside Emersons family, namely the death of his son, Waldo. He died because of a severe case of scarlet fever. After that, Emerson wrote Threnedy an elegy expressing his grief for his lost son. The poem was included in the collection of poems published in 1846. The other children, Ellen, Edith and Edward Waldo all survived to adulthood. Another trip to Europe followed, the second of his life, namely in England , where he started lecturing again this time having a great success. Once there he made new friends inside the cultural circles, notably English authors and collected materials for what later was English Traits, published in 1856. Once there he also renewed his friendship with Carlyle. He then published Adresses and Lectures in 1849 and Representative Men in 1850. Even though appreciated, Emerson's later works were never so highly esteemed as his writings previous to 1850. However, he continued to lead an active intellectual and social life. He continued lecturing in different parts of the country and he continued his publishing career. During the 1850s, he vigorously supported the antislavery movement. When the American Civil War broke out, he supported the Northern cause, but the war troubled him. He was deeply affected by the violence and the terrors of the war. After thirty years of pause, in 1866, Emerson was reconciled with Harvard, and in 1867 at only a year later the once again invited him there to deliver a speech. His second gathering of poems was published in 1867 under the title May-Day and Other Pieces, and three years later the

essays he written in his late period of activity were published under the title Society and Solitude (1870). In the latest period of his life Emerson's health and mental acuity began to decline rapidly. Moreover, in 1872 his home was badly damaged by a fire and his friend Russell Lowell and others raised $17,000 to repair the house and send him on vacation. Despite that the trauma only added to his intellectual decline. Seven years after the fire incident, in 1879, Emerson joined Amos Bronson Alcott and others in establishing the Concord School of Philosophy. He often lamented about not having any new ideas ad he quit his lecture because his memory began to lapse. Emerson met his end on April 27, 1882, killed by pneumonia. In announcing his death and as a sign of appreciation the Concord church bells rang no less than 79 times, the number of years that the great man of culture had at that time.

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