Critical Analysis Related To Transcendentalists Such As Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, And Fuller

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a true visionary who created a modern moral philosophy from the ground floor. When Emerson said, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but rising everytime we fall”, we can  better understand his willingness to create something from nothing. We can understand that to rise up we must fall first. Emerson threw many papers away because he couldn’t get his theories perfect which was his fall, but once he managed to get his theories through that was his rise. There will always be a rise and fall and you will have to be prepared for it, or you may not be able to last through your path.

Transcendentalists such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller all fought against the tide and established a new way of contemplating one’s existence in American society.  Born in Boston, Massachusetts his father was a Prominent Unctancian Minister. At age 8 Emerson lost his father. After that money was tight but somehow his mother found funds for him to go to Harvard for college. He graduated 30th out of 59 students in 1821. He was a n average student. Again in 1825 he went to Harvard for his degree in Unitarian Minister and was ordained in 1839. In 1830 he had a spiritual crisis when his wife Ellen died. After that tragic event he moved to Concord, Massachuesetts. He decided to study philosophy, religion, and literature. With that experience he was able to publish Nature in 1836 At the same time he founded the transcendentalist club. This is how he met Henry David Thereau and Sarah Margret Fuller. Nature turned into an unofficial manifesto.

The ones that knew Emerson said that he was stiff and formal dresses in black. He reserved passion for the pencil and podium.He advocated for the abolition of slavory. He used anitslavory activist as a form of distraction from his work and paper. He said “imprisoned spirits, imprisoned thoughts, form back in the brain of man.” Emerson seemed to many that he had no personality, he was only a form of existence. Though his success in synthesizing self-reliance with abolitionism when he urged resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law: individuals who resisted the law displayed self-reliance of the kind Emerson celebrated.He influenced the people that attended the transcendentalist club. The main people that he influenced though were Henry David Thoreau and Sarah Margret Fuller. He inspired them to write, be transcendentalists, and to fight for what they believe in. Born and raised and died in Concord, Massachusetts.

He went to Harvard to become a teacher. At Harvard he was required to wear a black coat but instead he sported a green one. For most of his life writing and observing nature. He spent minimum time on getting a wage. He published 2 books in the course of his life time. They sold very poorly. He was recognized as one of the first environmentalists. In 1845 he had the chance to conduct his famous experiment, living by himself in a small cabin near Walden Pond. In 1856 he was arrested for not paying poll tax. He stayed in jail overnight. Sadly a few years later he died at age 44 from tuberculosis. He was viewed as an unsuccessful nature writer but now he is known as father of American nature writer and important political thinker.He fought for what he believed in, civil disobedience, he resisted the civil government.

“The government does not concern me much and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free [free is his thinking], fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long appearing to be to him, enwise release on reformers cannot fatally interrupt him” He tried hard to get his belief through to people but many did not like it. He influenced few but the ones that were influenced turned into great leaders. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Leo Tolstory were a few of the great leaders inspired by him. He inspired them to go against not just the government but the people that told them what to do. The people that followed them had strength to stand up against the people pushing them around like rag dolls.

They realized that they aren’t just a play toy they are more than that they are a human being capable of being who ever they want to be.Sarah Margret Fuller was born in Cambridge port, Massachusetts. Her father had high expectations for her. At age 10 he counseled that excelling “in all things should be your constant aim” as a teen she sometimes started her work at 5 a.m. and didn’t finish tell 11 p.m. At 25 her father suddenly died. She became a teacher to help her family. In 1840 she became an editor for “The Dial” but it was short-lived. As she wrote magazines, solicited poems, essays, and fiction much of it wrote by herself. Shortly after “The Dial” went out of business she started to write columns for “New York Times” and in 1845 she published Women in the Nineteenth century. Soon after she settled in Rome she fell in love with an italian aristocrat Giovanni Angeko Ossoli.