best essays by emerson

• Annotated Full Text
• Literary Period: Transcendentalism
• Publication Date: 1841
• Flesch-Kincaid Level: 9
• Approx. Reading Time: 52 minutes
• Self-Reliance

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” embodies some of the most prominent themes of the transcendentalist movement in the 19th century. First published in 1841, “Self-Reliance” advocates for individualism and encourages readers to trust and follow their own instincts and intuition rather than blindly adhere to the will of others. The writing is elegant and poetic; its concepts timeless and words pure. Emerson draws supporting examples from a range of major historical figures, from Aristotle to Napoleon Bonaparte, to show how their success and genius came from originality and innovation, instead of conformity. With its most early conception coming shortly after the death of his wife, “Self-Reliance” manifests feelings of hope and optimism that could seldom be expected at a time of such despair. Emerson doesn’t withhold from letting his readers know the true value they have to offer the world, asserting that self-reliance serves as a beginning point for a more efficient, productive society.

Table of Contents

• Alliteration
• Historical Context
• Literary Devices
• Rhetorical Devices

Study Guide

• Ralph Waldo Emerson Biography

Teaching Resources

• Self-Reliance Allusion Activity
• Self-Reliance Teaching Guide

Category III – Essays II

Essays, Second Series , was originally published in 1844, three years after Essays, First Series . The major event in Emerson’s life during this period was the death of his son,Waldo, Jr., aged five, who died quite suddenly in 1842 from scarlet fever. The essay "Experience" reflects this tragic event and is thought by many to signal a turning point in Emerson’s vision. But the rest of the volume continues the major themes begun earlier. 

• Complete Works of RWE , III - Essays II

IX New England Reformers

IN the suburb, in the town, On the railway, in the square, Came a beam of goodness down Doubling daylight everywhere: Peace now each for malice takes, Beauty for his sinful weeds, For the angel Hope aye makes Him an…

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• December 19, 2004

VIII Nominalist and Realist

In countless upward-striving waves The moon-drawn tide-wave strives; In thousand far-transplanted grafts The parent fruit survives; So, in the new-born millions, The perfect Adam lives. Not less are summer-mornings dear To every child they wake, And each with novel life…

VII Politics

Gold and iron are good To buy iron and gold; All earth’s fleece and food For their like are sold. Boded Merlin wise, Proved Napoleon great, — Nor kind nor coinage buys Aught above its rate. Fear, Craft, and Avarice…

The rounded world is fair to see, Nine times folded in mystery: Though baffled seers cannot impart The secret of its laboring heart, Throb thine with Nature’s throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west. Spirit that lurks…

Gifts of one who loved me, — ‘T was high time they came; When he ceased to love me, Time they stopped for shame. Essay V Gifts It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that…

“How near to good is what is fair! Which we no sooner see, But with the lines and outward air Our senses taken be. Again yourselves compose, And now put all the aptness on Of Figure, that Proportion Or Color…

III Character

The sun set; but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye: And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more…

II Experience

The lords of life, the lords of life,— I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim, Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift, and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor…

A moody child and wildly wise Pursued the game with joyful eyes, Which chose, like meteors, their way, And rived the dark with private ray: They overleapt the horizon’s edge, Searched with Apollo’s privilege; Through man, and woman, and sea,…

• December 13, 2004

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The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph waldo emerson.

Edited by Alfred R. Ferguson and Jean Ferguson Carr

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ISBN 9780674267206

Publication date: 04/02/1987

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Kazin observes in his Introduction, “was a great writer who turned the essay into a form all his own.” His celebrated essays—the twelve published in Essays: First Series (1841) and eight in Essays: Second Series (1844)—are here presented for the first time in an authoritative one-volume edition, which incorporates all the changes and corrections Emerson made after their initial publication.

The text is reproduced from the second and third volumes of The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson , a critical edition which draws on the vast body of Emerson scholarship of the last half century. Alfred R. Ferguson was founding editor of the edition, followed by Joseph Slater (until 1996).

A ‘critical’ and unmodernized text as close to Emerson’s original intent as modern bibliographic research can come. —Library Journal

• Alfred R. Ferguson (1915–1974) was Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
• Jean Ferguson Carr is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where she writes and teaches in composition, women’s studies, history of the book, literacy, and literary studies, focusing on nineteenth-century American constructions of literacy and letters.
• Alfred Kazin (1915–1998) was Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and author and editor of many books, including A Writer’s America: Landscape in American Literature .

Book Details

• 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
• Belknap Press
• Introduction by Alfred Kazin

From this author

Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume X: Uncollected Prose Writings

The Annotated Emerson

Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume IX: Poems

Recommendations.

Du Bois’s Telegram

The Novel of Human Rights

Guilty Aesthetic Pleasures

Civic Longing

Poet-Critics and the Administration of Culture

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Ralph Waldo Emerson   The Best 5 Books to Read

R alph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882) was a philosopher and essayist perhaps best known for spearheading American Transcendentalism, a philosophical movement that emphasizes the power of individualism, self-reliance, and the natural world.

One of the key hallmarks of the Transcendentalist movement, which notably included Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau (see our reading list of Thoreau’s best books here ), is its celebration of the supremacy — even divinity — of nature.

Divinity is not locked in a distant heaven, say transcendentalists; it is accessible right here in the company of the natural world.

We are thus at our best not when we conform to voices outside ourselves, but when we follow the voice within — the glimmering insight, the “immense intelligence” of our natural intuition and instincts.

Society on this view is seen as a corrupting force — it takes us away from our natural wisdom.

As unique individuals, we should not conform to generic belief systems or conventions, Emerson writes, but instead “enjoy an original relation to the universe.”

Emerson offers the beginnings of a path for how we might resist the pressures of society in his famous 1841 essay, Self-Reliance (read my Self-Reliance summary and analysis here ), which features in the collection below.

A famous passage from Emerson’s Self-Reliance that encapsulates the theme of much of his work runs as follows:

You will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

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This reading list consists of the best books by and about Ralph Waldo Emerson.

After reading some of the books on this list, you’ll understand why this brilliant thinker was heralded by the great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche as “the most gifted of the Americans” (see my reading list of Nietzsche’s best books here ), and remains so celebrated to this day.

Let’s dive in!

1. Nature and Selected Essays, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Nature was Emerson’s first book, and it set out the core principles for much of his (and Transcendentalist) thought.

Published in 1836 following the traumatic death of his first wife, Nature features Emerson at his sermonic best. Having left the Church, Emerson aimed to deliver secular lectures that nevertheless contained an almost religious power of their own. Nature is his first attempt at doing so with the written word — and in this regard it’s an undisputed success.

Emerson meditates on the power and beauty of nature and our profound, unbreakable connection to it. He writes:

Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it.

The essence of nature is integral to the essence of ourselves, and Emerson implores us to both explore and live in harmony with it.

If you’re interested in Emerson and Transcendentalism, there’s no better book to start with. As well as the book-length Nature essay, Nature and Selected Essays also includes many other of Emerson’s most acclaimed essays, including Self-Reliance, The Poet, and The American Scholar.

2. The Annotated Emerson, by Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Mikics

The Annotated Emerson

While Emerson is regarded as one of America’s greatest writers, his luxurious 19th-century prose can appear a little dense to the modern eye. Hence The Annotated Emerson : a brilliant book — published in 2012 — that contextualizes, illustrates, and discusses Emerson’s most important works.

Presenting some of Emerson’s most significant essays (including Nature, Self-Reliance, and more), the scholar David Mikics provides brilliant commentary throughout, drawing on Emerson’s journal entries and providing biographical details to supplement the work and bring Emerson’s writing to life.

For those seeking a deeper understanding of Emerson’s work, The Annotated Emerson is highly recommended.

3. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures

If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for all things Emerson, then look no further than Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures , published in 1983.

This anthology contains all of Emerson’s essays and lectures, as well as a wealth of helpful contextual and biographical detail.

At 1150 pages, this anthology’s a beast — but you won’t need another!

4. Emerson: The Mind on Fire, by Robert D. Richardson

Emerson: The Mind on Fire

BY ROBERT D. RICHARDSON

If you’re looking to learn more about the life Emerson lived and the events that shaped his work, Robert D. Richardson’s Emerson: The Mind on Fire is a fantastic biography, excellently researched and engagingly written.

In 100 bite-size chapters, Richardson lovingly weaves the story of Emerson’s intellectual development, his spearheading of the Transcendentalist movement (and often fraught interpersonal relationships with its members), his legacy as one of the greatest figureheads of American literature, and his lasting impact on the American psyche.

If you’re interested in Emerson, this autobiography is an essential addition to your bookshelf.

5. Emerson in His Journals, by Joel Porte

Emerson in His Journals

BY JOEL PORTE

For much of his long and fascinating life, Emerson kept a detailed journal. In 1984, Emerson scholar Joel Porte edited Emerson’s vast collection of journal entries to produce Emerson in His Journals , a book that should delight fans of Emerson and his work.

In these pages, we are granted intimate access into some of the major events in Emerson’s life — like his complex relationship with fellow Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller — from Emerson’s own perspective .

We see a side to Emerson that he would never expose in his published writings, rendering Emerson in His Journals an enthralling addition for hardcore Emerson scholars.

Further reading

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10 of the Best Ralph Waldo Emerson Poems Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

In his vast Guide to Modern World Literature , Martin Seymour-Smith calls Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman the only true poetic innovators in nineteenth-century American poetry. But in fact, Dickinson’s eccentric use of slant rhyme and Whitman’s development of free verse are both anticipated in the work of an earlier nineteenth-century American poet: Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Emerson (1803-82) is best-known for his prose writings: his 1836 pamphlet ‘ Nature ’ became a kind of unofficial manifesto for the Transcendentalist movement in New England. This was, in many ways, America’s development of European Romanticism, in that it argued for the kinship between the natural world and the human imagination.

Emerson’s prose essays often eclipse his poetic achievement. His poetry, which appeared in Poems (1847) and May-Day and Other Pieces (1867), is uneven in quality, but at its best it is lively, arresting, and genuinely innovative. Let’s take a look at ten of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s best poems.

1. ‘ Boston Hymn ’.

The word of the Lord by night To the watching Pilgrims came, As they sat by the seaside, And filled their hearts with flame.

God said, I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ear the morning brings The outrage of the poor.

One of two very famous public hymns Emerson is principally known for (even by people who don’t usually read his poetry), ‘Boston Hymn’ was composed in 1862 and read publicly in Boston Music Hall on 1 January 1863.

The poem commemorates the Emancipation Proclamation issued by the US President Abraham Lincoln. Emerson lived in Boston, and the city was known for its support for the abolitionist movement; this hymn celebrates the freeing of the slaves which the proclamation brought into being.

2. ‘ The Snow-Storm ’.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.

Transcendentalists, like the Romantics whom they followed and learnt so much from, often write about nature in all its power and beauty; and this is one of Emerson’s finest nature poems.

Indeed, the poem might be regarded as an example of the Sublime: that philosophy which views nature as both beautiful and terrifying, and far greater, more long-lasting, and more powerful than mankind. In lines of blank verse – the unrhymed structure perhaps suggesting the wild unpredictability of the snow falling – Emerson vividly captures the ‘frolic architecture of the snow’.

3. ‘ Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing ’.

Though loath to grieve The evil time’s sole patriot, I cannot leave My honied thought For the priest’s cant, Or statesman’s rant.

As the full title of this poem makes clear, it was dedicated to William Henry Channing (1810-84), a minister and reformer for the abolition of slavery. The poem is one of Emerson’s most deeply allusive, and one needs a fairly good knowledge of American history to make sense of its various references; but the lively short lines show Emerson’s distinctive and original approach to form.

4. ‘ The Rhodora ’.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

This 1834 poem is another one of Emerson’s nature poems, describing the flowering shrub, the rhodora, in the woods. Emerson praises this shrub as a ‘rival of the rose’ for its beauty. The last line is Romantic Transcendentalism through and through, uniting the poet’s fate with that of the flower.

5. ‘ Merlin ’.

Pass in, pass in, the angels say, In to the upper doors; Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to Paradise By the stairway of surprise.

In this longer poem of 1847, Emerson tried to find a new direction for American poetry, much as he had tried to do in his 1843 essay ‘ The Poet ’. To do this, Emerson rejects the traditional forms and models which earlier American poets had inherited from England and Europe.

The Merlin of Emerson’s poem is a seer, a prophetic figure: exactly the kind of person Emerson thought the poet should be. The image of the ‘stairway of surprise’, quoted above, has often been praised by critics.

6. ‘ Brahma ’.

If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again.

This poem, written in 1856, was first published in The Atlantic the following year. The poem is named after Brahman, the universal principle of the Vedas in Hinduism. It’s a dramatic work (of sorts), spoken by Brahma himself, and reveals Emerson’s interest in Eastern scriptures and spiritual thought.

7. ‘ The Bell ’.

I love thy music, mellow bell, I love thine iron chime, To life or death, to heaven or hell, Which calls the sons of Time.

Written in more traditional quatrains using alternate abab rhyme, ‘The Bell’ shows that Emerson was capable of more conventional formal lyrics as well as his freer, looser poems.

8. ‘ Ode to Beauty ’.

Who gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,— Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old; Or what was the service For which I was sold?

Here’s another of Emerson’s odes, this time in praise of ‘Beauty’, whom Emerson personifies and addresses directly. For Emerson, Beauty is ‘Queen of things’ whom he entreats to give herself to him, or else let him die – for a life lived without beauty is not worth living.

9. ‘ Terminus ’.

It is time to be old, To take in sail:— The god of bounds, Who sets to seas a shore, Came to me in his fatal rounds, And said: ‘No more! No farther shoot Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root …

The Latin word ‘terminus’ means ‘end’, and this later poem, published when Emerson was in his sixties, shows him reflecting on old age and what Philip Larkin called ‘the only end of age’, death. Terminus, in Emerson’s poem, is personified, as a figure not unlike Old Father Time, reminding us that Terminus was a Roman god of boundaries and endings.

10. ‘ Concord Hymn ’.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Let’s conclude this pick of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s best poems with his best-known of all. ‘Concord Hymn’ is a ‘poem of occasion’, written in 1837 in order to be sung at the unveiling of a monument commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord. Emerson was unable to attend the unveiling himself, but Henry David Thoreau was there to sing the hymn along with others in attendance.

One line from this public poem (and a very formally regular poem, by Emerson’s standards) has become universally known: ‘the shot heard around the world.’ Emerson’s poem commemorates those Americans who resisted British rule, starting with the War of Independence in the previous century and moving up to date.

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The Massachusetts Center for the Book (MCB) has selected Emerson College Professor Kimberly McLarin’s latest book, Everyday Something Has Tried to Kill Me and Has Failed (Ig Publishing; 2024) for Nonfiction Honors in this year’s Massachusetts Book Awards program .

“Every year, judges from the writing, academic, publishing, bookselling, and library communities come together to select the best of the best — books that haunt and inspire, books that motivate us to think, feel, and learn,” said MCB Executive Director Courtney Andree.

The book, subtitled “Notes from Periracial America,” is a collection of essays that “illuminate the pain and power of aging, Blackness, and feminism,” according to the publisher.   

“Given that you can’t throw a rock anywhere in Massachusetts without hitting a talented writer, it’s a pretty nice honor. I’m grateful,” McLarin said.

McLarin, also Interim Dean of Graduate & Professional Studies, writes that she coined the term, periracial, … “To capture the endless cycle of progress and backlash which has shaped my one small life here in America during the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. To counter the idea — now largely abandoned by innocently believed for most of my adult life by white Americans on both ends of the political spectrum — that America has ever been post-racial.”

Everyday Something Has Tried to Kill.. me follows McLarin’s essay collection, Womanish , published in 2019 and called “blisteringly honest, funny and vulnerable” by The New York Times . She is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, several essay collection/memoirs, and the bibliomemoir James Baldwin’s Another Country: Bookmarked . A former staff writer for the Associated Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times, McLarin’s work also has appeared in the New England Review , the Sewanee Review , The Sun Magazine , The Root, Slate , and The Washington Post.

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