Transcript Ralph Waldo Emerson - Summit School District / Overview

Ralph Waldo
Emerson
“To go into solitude, a man needs to
retire as much as from his
chamber as from his society.”
“A man is a god in ruins.”
“The civilized man has built a coach,
but has lost the use of his feet.”
1803-1882
• an essayist
• a poet
• an orator
• a philosopher
• He entered Harvard at
age 14.
• Entered Harvard Divinity
School and became a
pastor.
• Resigned from the
ministry after his first
wife’s death to travel
Europe.
• During the 1830’s and 1840’s,
Emerson and a small group of
intellectuals gathered to discuss
philosophy, religion and
literature.
• This group was known as the
TRANSCENDENTAL CLUB and
they developed a system of
philosophy that stressed intuition,
individuality and self-reliance.
Transcendentalism
• an intellectual movement that
directly or indirectly affected most of
the writers of the New England
Renaissance.
• Human senses can know only
physical reality
• The fundamental truths of being and
the universe lie outside the reach of
of the senses and can be grasped
only through intuition.
• They focused their attention
on the human spirit.
• They were interested in the
natural world and its
relationship to humanity.
• If they explored nature
thoroughly, they would come
to know themselves and
universal truths better
• They discovered the human
spirit is reflected in nature.
• All forms of being- GOD,
NATURE, and HUMANITY are spiritually united through
a shared universal soul, or
Over-soul.
• The Over-soul was “a
universal and benign
omnipresence....a God
known to men only in
moments of mystic
enthusiasm, whose
visitations leave them
altered, self-reliant, and
purified of petty aims.”
• The transcendental movement
produced a native blend that
was romantic, intuitive,
mystical and considerably
easier to recognize than to
define.
• It is difficult to pin down.
• The movement meant intense
individualism and self-
“The Divinity School Address”
• Emerson called for the rejection
of institutional religion in favor
of a personal relation with God.
• Religious truth was an
“intuition. It cannot be received
at second hand”
• He called on the students before
him to “cast behind…all
conformity and acquaint men at
first hand with the Deity.”
• Three decades passed before he
was allowed to speak at
Harvard again…
• “A foolish consistency in
the hobgoblin of little
minds”- Ralph Waldo
Emerson