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Ralph Waldo Emerson BY: Rachel Phillips

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Ralph Waldo Emerson. BY: Rachel Phillips. Early Life: Boston, Massachusetts . Born: May 25, 1803 Died: April 27, 1882 Descended from a well-known line of ministers. Father died May 12,1811; less than two weeks before 18 th birthday Started formal schooling in 1812 (Boston Latin School). - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Page 2: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Early Life: Boston, Massachusetts Born: May 25, 1803

Died: April 27, 1882

Descended from a well-known line of ministers.

Father died May 12,1811; less than two weeks before 18th birthday

Started formal schooling in 1812

(Boston Latin School)

Page 3: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

PhilosophyEmerson believed:

Non-conformity

Individualism

Harmony between man and nature

That the Native Americans should stop

being treated like animals

Page 4: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Philosophy cont.Studied Eastern philosophy

Practiced idea that “god is present in everything”

Sowed the seeds of the American Transcendentalist movement

Realized importance of spiritual inner-self

Page 5: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Philosophy cont.Studied: Kantianism, Confucianism, Neo-

Platonism, Romanticism, and dialectical metaphysics.

Read the works of Saint Augustine, Sir Francis Bacon, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Shakespeare.

Page 6: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Between philosophy and the church…Graduated college at 18 in 1821 (Harvard- started 1817)

Worked for uncle teaching (Rev. Samuel Ripley)

Opened a finishing school for girls, but he did not enjoy school teaching (closed it 4 years later)

1829- married Ellen Tucker(died 1830)

1832 –split from the church

1835- married Lydia Jackson

(often called her Lidian)

Page 7: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Romantic Literature:Love of NatureLove of the Common ManNeo-ClassicismThe SupernaturalNationalismHeroismStrange and Far-away places

Page 8: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Poetry! Bacchus Bring me wine, but wine which never

grewIn the belly of the grape,Or grew on vine whose taproots reaching throughUnder the Andes to the Cape,Suffered no savor of the world to 'scape.Let its grapes the morn saluteFrom a nocturnal rootWhich feels the acrid juiceOf Styx and Erebus,And turns the woe of night,By its own craft, to a more rich delight.

We buy ashes for bread,We buy diluted wine;Give me of the true,Whose ample leaves and tendrils curledAmong the silver hills of heaven,Draw everlasting dew;Wine of wine,Blood of the world,Form of forms and mould of statures,That I; intoxicated,

And by the draught assimilated,May float at pleasure through all natures,The bird-language rightly spell,And that which roses say so well.

Wine that is shedLike the torrents of the sunUp the horizon walls;Or like the Atlantic streams which runWhen the South Sea calls.

Water and bread;Food which needs no transmuting,Rainbow-flowering, wisdom-fruiting;Wine which is already man,Food which teach and reason can.

Wine which music is;Music and wine are one;That I, drinking this,Shall hear far chaos talk with me,Kings unborn shall walk with me,And the poor grass shall plot and planWhat it will do when it is man:Quickened so, will I unlockEvery crypt of every rock.

I thank the joyful juiceFor all I know;Winds of rememberingOf the ancient being blow,And seeming-solid walls ot useOpen and flow.

Pour, Bacchus, the remembering wine;Retrieve the loss of me and mine;Vine for vine be antidote,And the grape requite the lot.Haste to cure the old despair,Reason in nature's lotus drenched,The memory of ages quenched;—Give them again to shine.Let wine repair what this undid,And where the infection slid,And dazzling memory revive.Refresh the faded tints,Recut the aged prints,And write my old adventures, with the penWhich, on the first day, drewUpon the tablets blueThe dancing Pleiads, and the eternal men.

Bacchus by Caravaggio!

Page 9: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

More Poetry! Yay! Give All To Love Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;Friends, kindred, days,Estate, good-fame,Plans, credit, and the Muse,-Nothing refuse.'Tis a brave master;Let it have scope:Follow it utterly,Hope beyond hope:High and more highIt dives into noon,With wing unspent,Untold intent;But it is a god,Knows its own path,And the outlets of the sky.It was not for the mean;It requireth courage stout,Souls above doubt,

Valor unbending;It will reward,-They shall returnMore than they were,And ever ascending.Leave all for love;Yet, hear me, yet,One word more thy heart behoved,One pulse more of firm endeavor,-Keep thee today,To-morrow, forever,Free as an ArabOf thy beloved.Cling with life to the maid;But when the surprise,First vague shadow of surmiseFlits across her bosom youngOf a joy apart from thee,Free be she, fancy-free;Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,Nor the palest rose she flungFrom her summer diadem

Page 10: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Close to the end….1871 started to suffer from aphasia and

memory loss

If asked how he was: "Quite well; I have lost my mental faculties, but am perfectly well".

1882 went for a walk in the rain and caught pneumonia

Died 9 days later on April 27,1882

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord Massachusetts

Page 12: Ralph Waldo  Emerson

Citations!"Ralph Waldo Emerson." Web. 18 Dec 2009.

<http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/ralphwaldoemerson.html>.

"Ralph Waldo Emerson." Web. 18 Dec 2009. <http://www.shoshone.k12.id.us/romantic/lit.htm>. "Ralph Waldo Emerson." Poem Hunter. Web. 18 Dec 2009. <http://poemhunter.com >. "Ralph Waldo Emerson." Web. 18 Dec 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson>.

"Ralph Waldo Emerson." Web. 18 Dec 2009. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/ >.