Ralph
Waldo Emerson was born in 1803 in Boston, Massachusetts. He studied and
also taught at Harvard for a short time. He then entered the ministry and
was assigned to the Old Second Church in Boston. However he was soon unwilling
to preach as a result of his first wife dying from Tuberculosis in 1831.
In 1832 he visited Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Coleridge in Europe. Carlyle
and Emerson developed a long lasting friendship which helped Emerson formulate
his own philosophy. When he returned to New England, Emerson became known
for challenging traditionalist thought. Emerson married his second
wife, Lydia Jackson and they settled in Concord Mass. Emerson was known
as �The Sage of Concord,� he became the chief spokesman for Transcendentalism,
American philosophic and literary movement. Emerson�s first book Nature
(1836) was his best expression of transcendentalism. �Everything in our
world--- even a drop of dew--- is a microcosm of the universe.� He also
had this concept of the �Over Soul� �A supreme mind that every man and
woman share.� This allowed Transcendentalists to disregard external authority,
and to rely on direct experience instead. Emerson�s motto �trust thyself�
became the code of many. From 1842 to 1844, Emerson edited the transcendentalist
journal �The Dial.� Emerson�s most known works are essays First and
Second edition