Emerson R WRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, speaker, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who lived from May 25, 1803 to April 27, 1882. He went by his middle name, Waldo. He led the transcendentalist movement in the middle of the 1800s. People lookd up to him as a supporter of freedom and critical thinking, as well as a wise critic of how society and conformity can make people feel bad about themselves. He was called "the most gifted of the Americans" by Friedrich Nietzsche, and Walt Whitman called him his "master." Emerson slowly moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his time. In his 1836 essay "Nature," he formulated and explained the theory of transcendentalism. After this, in 1837, he gave a speech called "The American Scholar." Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. thought it was America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence." Emerson first wrote most of his important writings as lectures and then changed them to be ready for print. writings: First Series (1841) and Essays: Second Series (1844), his first two collections of writings, show how he thought. Some of the most well-known are "Experience," "Circles," "The Poet," "Self-Reliance," and "The Over-Soul." Between the middle of the 1830s and the middle of the 1840s, when these pieces and "Nature" were written, Emerson was at his most productive. Read More Read Less