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Ralph Waldo Emerson criticism

 

            
             The Heart That Vibrated to That Iron String .
             Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1803, was extremely intelligent for his age. Seven of Emerson's predecessors were ministers and preachers including his father William Emerson who was minister of the First Church of Boston. Ralph Waldo Emerson was almost forced into being a minister. He entered Harvard University at the young age of fourteen and graduated at eighteen. He then later completed his schooling and went to Harvard Divinity School. Soon after graduating he delivered few sermons and married Ellen Tucker who sadly died a year and a half later. In 1832, however, he resigned as a preacher due to personal doubts of religion. From thereafter the son of a preacher began to doubt religion and began to write some of his, now, most famous poems and essays such as Nature, Essays (both first and second), and Poems (Woodlief 1).
             Emerson's Nature was extremely controversial, receiving "extremes of praise and blame" (Myerson 5). In Nature he reminds the reader of the limitless power that the individual possesses. Nature emphasizes three of Emerson's main ideas: the limitless power of the individual, the importance of nature to the world, and that nature is the image of God, and the idea that God is amongst us all and describes people as a particle of God. His Transcendental beliefs were rejected by many who viewed Emerson's work as sacrilege and disrespectful to the Christian faith but his views also stimulated many "disciples" to follow Emerson and join the Transcendental club (Leary 1). His Nature essay was only the beginning of his many more famous works. .
             In Emerson's books entitled Essays and Essays Second Series. In his collection, Emerson continues to stress the ideas he presented in Nature. The more famous of his essays were "Self Reliance," "The American Scholar," and "The Divinity School Address." "Self Reliance" was said to be one of Emerson's greatest statements.


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