... elements from the past and shaped them into literature that had an important effect on later American writing. He influenced the work of Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and Robert Frost. Emerson's essays are a series of loosely related impressions, maxims, proverbs, and parables. He has been described as belonging to the tradition of "wisdom literature" that ... a lung disease and periods of temporary blindness. In addition, his first wife, Ellen, died in 1831 and his first son, Waldo, died in 1842. Emerson wrote one of his finest poems,...

• Word Count: 3135
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School