Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism Essay -- Biography Biographi

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson believed in the potential within every individual to procure a heightened state of being and awargonness through a close observation of the world and an introspective look at himself. Infused in his work are the influences of transcendentalism and his life as a Unitarian pastor. James D. Hart, when discussing the spirit of transcendentalism, states, Man may fulfill his predict potentialities either through a ecstatic mystical state, in which the divine is infused into the human, or through coming into contact with the truth, beauty, and goodness embodied in nature and originating in the Over-Soul. Thus occurs the doctrine of residue between the tangible world and the human mind, and the identity of moral and physical laws (Hart 674). This concept is the embodiment of Emersons sermons and essays, and any one of his works fulfills or inspires a divine potential. Self Reliance, published in 1841, i s one of Emersons most influential essays, and its title addresses a central concept of American Transcendentalism. The essay promotes self trust and license of the individual, and this idea is expressed in the final lines, Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the bliss of the principal (Lauter 1638). The principal he refers to is a moral truth that can only be developed in ones own mind. As man lives in search of this truth, he achieves human divinity. There is a time in every mans education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance that imitation is self-destruction that he must take... ... and divine because nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind (Lauter 1624). Works Cited Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Young Emerson Speaks. New York Kennikat rouse Inc., 1938. Hart, James D., The Oxford Companion to American Literature. 6th ed. New York OxfordUniversity Press, 1995. Howe, Daniel Walker. The Unitarian Conscience. Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1970. Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 3rd ed. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self Reliance.Lauter 1622 Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature.Lauter 1582 Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself.Lauter 2743 Wilbur, Earl Morse. A storey of Unitarianism In Transylvania, England, and America. Boston Beacon Press, 1945.