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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson. THE FATHER OF TRANSCENDENTALISM Ms. Whitaker. Early Life: Expectations lead to Identity Crisis . Born May 25, 1803 in Boston, MA Father was a clergyman, who died of tuberculosis when Emerson was 8, and left mother with 6 children

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  1. Ralph Waldo Emerson THE FATHER OF TRANSCENDENTALISM Ms. Whitaker

  2. Early Life: Expectations lead to Identity Crisis • Born May 25, 1803 in Boston, MA • Father was a clergyman, who died of tuberculosis when Emerson was 8, and left mother with 6 children • Attended Boston Latin School, followed by Harvard University age 14; expected to follow in footsteps • Licensed minister and ordained to Unitarian church

  3. Tragedy Strikes, of Course… • Emerson married Ellen Tucker in 1829; she died of tuberculosis less than two years later • Her death contributed to his crisis of faith; resigned from the clergy • Took off to Europe to converse with other writers of the time • Remarried Lydia Jackson after return to U.S. • Fame and influence grew with idea that individual souls were part of a larger entity

  4. Emerson’s Beliefs • Did not see past as important • Rejected institutional religion; in favor of a personal relation with God • Religious truth cannot be received secondhand but is intuitive • Young people and intellectuals optimistically responded to ideas about relationship with God, nature, and humanity

  5. Transcendentalism • Belief that every person would transcend, or move beyond, the physical world of sense into deeper spiritual experience through free will and intuition • Upholds personal nature of spirituality • Know and understand God and yourself by looking into your own soul and feeling connected to nature

  6. Tragedy Strikes…AGAIN! • Emerson’s son Waldo died of scarlet fever at age five • Could not cope with this • Later suffers memory loss and difficulty recalling ordinary words • Died in the fall of 1881.

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