Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was a famous American essayist and one of America's most influential thinkers and writers.

Works

Emerson's prose works include:

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• Nature (1836)
• "The American Scholar" (1837, an address to Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard)
• "The Divinity School Address" (1838)
• ' (1841; includes "Compensation", "Self-Reliance", and "Circles")
• "The Transcendentalist" (1841)
• ' (1844; includes "The Poet (Ralph Waldo Emerson)", "Experience", and "Politics")
• Representative Men (1850; features essays on Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe)
• English Traits (1856)
• The Conduct of Life (1860; includes "Fate" and "Power")
• "Thoreau" (1862; a eulogy for Henry David Thoreau)

Although he is more generally recognized as an essayist, Emerson also wrote and translated poetry. Emerson's poetry includes:

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• Collections:
• Poems (1847)
• May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
• Selected Poems (1876)
• Poems:
• "Threnody"
• "Uriel"
• "Works and Days"
• "Concord Hymn" (origin of the phrase "Shot heard 'round the world")