Emerson, Ralph Waldo

(1803–82) essayist, poet, lecturer; born in Boston, Mass. Son of a Unitarian minister, he was eight years old when his father died leaving six young children. At age 14 Ralph entered Harvard where he ran messages for the president and waited tables. He also began the journal that he kept up for 50 years, the source of many of his poems, essays, and lectures. Unhappy teaching (1821–25), he tried the Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and in 1826 began to guest preach in Unitarian pulpits, but his liberal ideas led him to break with the Unitarians in 1832. At the end of the year he went to Europe where he sought out many of the major literary-intellectual figures—in particular, Thomas Carlyle, his lifelong correspondent—and began to develop his own philosophy, a compound of German idealism, Neo-Platonism, Asian mysticism, and Swedenborgianism. Back in America in 1833 he took up guest preaching again, but he gradually abandoned that for public lectures. His first wife having died (1831), he remarried (1835) and settled in Concord, Mass., where he spent mornings writing and afternoons walking in the woods and fields; he enjoyed his four children and among his circle of friends was Henry David Thoreau. His famous Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard in 1837, "The American Scholar," was a humanist manifesto, stressing Americans' distinctive traits; and in place of traditional Christianity, he subscribed to a philosophy known as Transcendentalism, stressing the ties of humans to nature. Hardly an activist, he did support the abolitionists and the Civil War. Although he published many volumes of essays and poetry—Nature (1836), Representative Man (1850), The Conduct of Life (1860)—his main source of income as well as of his popular reputation came from the lectures that he gave throughout America and in England. He made a final trip to Europe and Egypt (1872–73) and continued to lecture and publish, but his mind clouded over during his final decade. Never accepted solely as a poet, philosopher, or creative writer, he has survived as one of America's most unique voices and influences.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Born May 25, 1803, in Boston; died Apr. 27, 1882, in Concord. American idealist philosopher, poet, and essayist. Head of the Transcendentalist movement.

Emerson’s philosophical views developed under the influence of classical German idealism. His world view was spiritualist and presented the spirit as the only reality. Taking a position close to pantheism, Emerson regarded nature as the embodiment of the spiritual absolute. He viewed the human soul as a microcosm that forms an intermediate link between the macrocosmic oversoul and nature. For Emerson, personal moral perfection consisted in the attainment of harmony with the oversoul.

Emerson’s ethics, which derive from romanticism, are individualist despite their pantheist tendency. Emerson sharply criticized capitalism; he thought that the institution of property in its 19th-century form was unjust and that it had pernicious effects. His social ideal was a utopia based on private property; according to Emerson, each person should live the simple and wise life of a free farmer or craftsman alone with nature.

Emerson won widespread fame for his lectures on social and ethical themes, such as those published in Letters and Social Aims (1876).

WORKS

Complete Works, vols. 1–12. New York, 1923.
The Letters, vols. 1–6. New York, 1939.
Essays, series 1–2. New York [1961].
The Journals, vols. 1–6. Cambridge, Mass., 1960–66.
In Russian translation:
Soch., vols. 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1902–03.
Nravstvennaia filosofiia, parts 1–2. St. Petersburg, 1868.
O bessmertii dushi. Moscow, 1887.
Vysshaia dusha. Moscow, 1902.
O doverii k sebe, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1904.
Estetika amerikanskogo romantizma, Moscow, 1977. Pages 178–397. (Translated from English.)

REFERENCES

Istoriia filosofii, vol. 3. Moscow, 1943. Pages 498–504.
Parrington, V. L. Osnovnye techeniia amerikanskoi mysli, vol. 2. Moscow, 1962. Pages 448–64. (Translated from English.)
Brooks, V. W. Pisatel’ i amerikanskaia zhizn’, vol. 1. Moscow, 1967. (Translated from English.)
Gray, H. D. Emerson. [Palo Alto, Calif.] 1917.
Sakmann, P. R. W. Emerson’s Geisteswelt nach den Werken und Tagebuchern. [Stuttgart, 1927.]
Gonnaud, M. Individu et société dans l’oeuvre de R. W. Emerson. Paris-Brussels, 1964. (Contains bibliography.)
Perry, B. Emerson Today. Hamden, Conn., 1969.
Cooke, G. A Bibliography of R. W. Emerson. [Ann Arbor, Mich., 1962.]

B. E. BYKHOVSKII