 ralph waldo emerson  (may 25, 1803&nbsp;â april 27, 1882) was an american essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. he was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the united states. emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, nature. following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled "the american scholar" in 1837, which oliver wendell holmes, sr. considered to be america's "intellectual declaration of independence".richardson, 263 emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first, then revised them for print. his first two collections of essays&nbsp;â essays: first series and essays: second series, published respectively in 1841 and 1844&nbsp;â represent the core of his thinking, and include such well-known essays as self-reliance, the over-soul, circles, the poet and experience. together with nature, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s emerson's most fertile period. emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. emerson's "nature" was more philosophical than naturalistic: "philosophically considered, the universe is composed of nature and the soul." emerson is one of several figures who "took a more [[pantheism|
1803_births 1882_deaths 19th-century_American_poets 19th-century_American_writers 19th-century_philosophers 19th-century_theologians American_Unitarians American_diarists American_essayists American_political_philosophers American_spiritual_writers Boston_Latin_School_alumni Boston_School_Committee_members Essays_by_Ralph_Waldo_Emerson Fellows_of_the_American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences Hall_of_Fame_for_Great_Americans_inductees Harvard_Divinity_School_alumni Lecturers Mystics People_associated_with_Transcendentalism People_from_Boston,_Massachusetts People_from_Concord,_Massachusetts Ralph_Waldo_Emerson Writers_from_Massachusetts