Hello. My Name is Ralph Waldo Emerson.

My name is Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I was born in Massachusetts in 1803. Perhaps you’ve heard of me or my work such as Nature or Self-Reliance? Or maybe you’ve heard of my famous speech entitled “The American Scholar”, of which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. said to be “America’s Declaration of Independence for Intellectuals”.

My education was between Boston’s Latin School and private tutoring; I later went on to study at Harvard on scholarship and struggled with the curriculum due to being the innovative genius of my time.

I followed in my family’s footsteps and entered Harvard Divinity School to become a preacher. Six years after my ordination, I resigned because I thought that formal Christianity only focused on past traditions, and I was more interested in contemporary issues. Have I mentioned that my work ridiculously ground-breaking?

I later educated myself on poetry and writing, and am often referred to as the “Father of American Literature” and one of the first American writers to be recognized by European literary establishments. Not a big deal or anything.

I was a poet, preacher, orator and an essayist; my work was considered controversial in its day, and I articulated our new nation’s prospects and needs through my speeches and through my writing.

I helped many authors get their start; just a few are Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglas, Robert Frost and Louisa May Alcott.

I worked well into my seventies and had my daughter organize my lectures (that moved many) and my journals that inspired new American writers. Work was indeed my life and I kept over 182 journals over my career.

My initial fame came from my critiques of literary, religious and educational establishments. I was known as an experimenter who urged my fellow Americans to reject their regard to old ideas and values to outdated traditions.

Did I mention that I am the leader in the Transcendentalist movement, which is a movement concerning new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy? Yes, the leader.

In closing, I will leave you with a quote from Joel Porte: “Emerson’s fate, somewhat like Shakespeare’s, was that he came to be treated as an almost purely allegorical personage whose real character and work got submerged in his function as a touchstone of critical opinion.”