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Ralph Waldo Emerson
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
The "sage of
Concord" was born May 25, 1803, in
Boston, MA . The son of a
Congregationalist minister, he
attended Harvard Divinity
School,
became pastor of a
Boston church in 1829, experienced
doubts about traditional Christian
belief, and resigned in 1832, moving
to Concord. He spent the next few
years studying and traveling in
Europe. After visiting a Paris
botanical exhibition, Emerson
resolved to be, as he termed it, a
"naturalist."
When he returned to
Concord, he began his career as a
lecturer in the country's new lyceum
movement. During the late 1830s
and early 1840s, Emerson published
the works that present his thought at
its most idealistic and optimistic. His
first published work was
Nature (1836), which contains
the gist of his transcendental attitude
towards the phenomenal world. The
doctrines formulated in these works
were later expanded and elaborated
upon in his Essays (1841)
and Essays: Second Series
(1844), of which "Self-Reliance," "The
Over-Soul," and "The Poet" are
among the best known. 
Emerson became identified with the Transcendental movement in the 1840s, serving as its spokesperson, and as founder and guiding force of that group's quarterly periodical, The Dial, which introduced the public to the writings of Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau, a group who shared Emerson's philosophy. It also published Emerson's first poems, including the "Concord Hymn," which celebrates "the shot heard round the world" of the Battle of Concord during the American Revolution.
Emerson's works in
the late 1840s chart a steady decline
in the author's idealism and give rise
to an emerging recognition of mortal
limitations. The Conduct of
Life (1860) perhaps best
expresses his humanistic
acquiescence to the reality of worldly
circumstances. 
Other important
later works include
Representative Men: Seven
Lectures (1850), a series of
essays on the men who most closely
fit Emerson's ideals -
including Plato, Napoleon, and
Shakespeare - and
English Traits (1856), a work
hailed by his friend Thomas Carlyle
as an accurate portrait of English
social manners in the midVictorian
era. He spent his last years in
Concord, writing little, but recognized
throughout America as a philosopher
of great stature. He is buried on
Author's Ridge in Concord's famous
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
Excerpted from http://www.RWE.org
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Upcoming events
- Thursday, February 9th at 2 pm - Theodora Goss, "The Thorn and the Blossom"(1 day)
- Sunday, February 12th at 3 pm - Toby Lester, "Da Vinci's Ghost"(4 days)
- Sunday, February 19th at 3 pm - Sarah McCoy, "The Baker's Daughter"(11 days)
- Sunday, February 26th at 3 pm - Margot Livesey, "The Flight of Gemma Hardy"(18 days)
- Sunday, March 11th at 3 pm - Kate Flora, "Redemption"(32 days)
- Sunday, March 18th at 3 pm - Madeline Miller, "The Song of Achilles"(39 days)
- Thursday March 22th at 7 pm - Howard Frank Mosher, "The Great Northern Express"(43 days)
- Sunday, March 25th at 3 pm - Natalie Dykstra, "Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life"(46 days)
- Sunday, April 1st at 3 pm - Deborah Kops, The "Great Molasses Flood", and Heather Lang, "Queen of the Track"(53 days)
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