2. Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. Ralph Waldo Emerson Father (minister) died when RWE was eight.
Mother raised five boys alone.
RWE worked way through Harvard (starting at 14).

5. Considered one of America’s greatest writers and thinkers & the spiritual voice of a generation.
Formed the Transcendental Club with Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and others.

6. books

7. Intellectual leader of transcendentalists
Poetic style, elegant way with words
Wrote lectures, poems, essays, & journals

8. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance is a series of loosely related thoughts from his writings
Expresses his belief in the importance of the individual.

10. Aphorisms (brief, one-sentence statement that expresses a general principle or truth about life) abound in RWE’s writing.
Example of an aphorism: “Honesty is the best policy” (Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack).

12. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Grave