Transcript Ralph Waldo Emerson - Kaneland School District

Ralph Waldo Emerson
By Group 5
Ralph Waldo
Emerson enjoyed
reading books
Biography
• Born in 1803, in Boston,
• His father was a Unitarian
minister.
• At the age of 8, his father
died.
• He attended Harvard
Divinity School
• Was ordained a minister of
the Second Church of
Boston
• Married Ellen Tucker in
1829
• His wife, Ellen died of
Tuberculosis in 1832
• 1835, he married Lydia
Jackson, and had four
children
• His son Waldo died in 1842
• Moved to England in 1847
• Traveled frequently in his
later life, making as many
as 1500 lectures
• Died in 1882 from
pneumonia
Poems
Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Apology
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
There was never mystery,
But 'tis figured in the flowers,
Was never secret history,
But birds tell it in the bowers.
One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.
Poems Cont.
The Snow-Storm
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The steed and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come, see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs, and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
The strain of the frequent deaths in his
family probably helped him look so cute
Some Interesting Facts
• Emerson is considered a chief figure in
Transcendentalism
• Went to Harvard at age 14
• Outlived his four children
• Was against slavery
• Fourth child out of nine boys
Works Cited
• Age-of-sage.org- http://www.age-of-thesage.org/transcendentalism/emerson/ralph
_waldo_emerson.html
• Ralph Waldo Emersonhttp://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendenta
lism/authors/emerson/
• Ralph Waldo Emerson Biographyhttp://people.brandeis.edu/teuber/emberso
nbio.html