Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Table of Contents


From the Pages of Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Title Page

Copyright Page

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The World of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Introduction

A Note on the Text


ESSAYS

Nature

Introduction
Chapter I
Chapter II - Commodity
Chapter III - Beauty
Chapter IV - Language
Chapter V - Discipline
Chapter VI - Idealism
Chapter VII - Spirit
Chapter VIII - Prospects

The American Scholar - An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, ...

An Address - Delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, ...

Man the Reformer - A Lecture Read before the Mechanics’ Apprentices’ Library ...

The Transcendentalist - A Lecture Read at the Masonic Temple, Boston, January, 1842.

Self-Reliance

Compensation

Spiritual Laws

Friendship

The Over-Soul’

Circles

The Poet’

Experience

Politics

Nominalist and Realist

Uses of Great Men

Plato; or, The Philosopher

Shakspeare; or, the Poet

Napoleon; or, the Man of the World

Address to the Citizens of Concord (on the Fugitive Slave Law)

Fate

Power

Illusions

Thoreau


POEMS

Each and All

The Problem

The Snow-storm

The Rhodora - On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?

Uriel

The Humble-bee

Hamatreya

Earth-song

Give All to Love

Merlin

I
II

Xenophanes

Concord Hymn’ - Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument, July 4, 1837

Voluntaries

I
II
III
IV
V

Days

The Chartist’s Complain

Terminus


Glossary of Names

Endnotes

Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Comments & Questions

Questions

For Further Reading

From the Pages of Essays and Poems
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the woods, we return to reason and faith.

(from “Nature,” page 12)


The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy. (from “The Transcendentalist,” page 101)


To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men—that is genius.

(from “Self-Reliance,” page 113)


Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint stock company in which the members agree for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. (from “Self-Reliance,” page 116)


To be great is to be misunderstood. (from “Self-Reliance,” page 120)


A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

(from “Friendship,” page 179)


The only reward of virtue, is virtue: the only way to have a friend, is to be one. (from “Friendship,” page 183)


There is not yet any inventory of a man’s faculties, and more than a bible of his opinions. (from “Power,” page 000)

When I heard the Earth-song,
I was no longer brave;
My avarice cooled
Like lust in the chill of the grave.

(from “Earth-song,” page 000)

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The present texts of Emerson’s essays and poems all derive from
The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903-1904),
prepared by his son, Edward Waldo Emerson.

Published in 2004 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction,
Notes, Biography, Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions,
and For Further Reading.

Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

Copyright © 2004 by Peter Norberg.

Note on Ralph Waldo Emerson, The World of Ralph Waldo Emerson
and His Essays and Poems, Inspired by the Essays and Poems of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Comments & Questions
Copyright © 2004 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson

ISBN-13: 978-1-59308-076-1 ISBN-10: 1-59308-076-X

eISBN : 978-1-411-43212-3

LC Control Number 2003112461


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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on May 25, 1803, to William and Ruth Emerson. In 1811 Emerson’s father died, leaving his mother limited resources for raising the family. Three of Emerson’s siblings died during childhood and two before age thirty; one was mentally handicapped. His elder brother William, who became a lawyer in New York City, was the only other Emerson child to have a lengthy career. The family was so impoverished in Emerson’s early years that one winter he and his brother Edward had to share a single overcoat. Ruth was aided in child-rearing by her sister-in-law Mary Moody Emerson, who instilled in her young nephew a love of learning; her influence helped Emerson enter the distinguished Boston Latin School at age nine and Harvard University at fourteen.

At Harvard Emerson was at best an average student, chosen class poet only after seven classmates had declined the offer. He studied rhetoric, won the Boylston oratory prize, and formed a club for public speaking. Upon graduation he worked first as a schoolteacher but in 1826 decided to become a minister. While preaching in New Hampshire, he met his great love, Ellen Tucker. They married and settled in Massachusetts, and Emerson secured a prominent position at the Second Church of Boston.

Ellen’s death from tuberculosis in 1831 permanently altered the course of Emerson’s life. His religious faith shaken to the core, he left his post as minister and toured Europe, where he saw Paris and the museums of Italy. In England he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle; he subsequently began an intellectual correspondence with Carlyle that lasted thirty-eight years. Returning to America in 1833, Emerson achieved financial security through an inheritance from his late wife, and his creative period began. Freed from the obligations of the ministry, he began to lecture publicly on a variety of topics, including natural history, biography, literature, and ethics. Throughout the rest of his career, public lectures provided him with a steady source of income and gradually increased his reputation as one of America’s leading intellectuals. In 1835 he married Lydia Jackson and with her had four children; in 1842 Emerson painfully watched his first born son, Waldo, die when the boy was only five.