Ralph Waldo Emerson

American poet, essayist, and philosopher Ralph Waldo

Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, in Boston,
Massachusetts. After studying at Harvard and teaching
for a brief time, Emerson entered the ministry. He was
appointed to the Old Second Church in his native city,
but soon became an unwilling preacher. Unable in
conscience to administer the sacrament of the Lords
Supper after the death of his nineteen-year-old wife of tuberculosis,
Emerson resigned his pastorate in 1831.
The following year, he sailed for Europe, visiting Thomas Carlyle
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Carlyle, the Scottish-born English writer, was
famous for his explosive attacks on hypocrisy and materialism, his distrust of
democracy, and his highly romantic belief in the power of the individual.
Emersons friendship with Carlyle was both lasting and significant; the
insights of the British thinker helped Emerson formulate his own philosophy.
On his return to New England, Emerson became known for challenging
traditional thought. In 1835, he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson, and
settled in Concord, Massachusetts. Known in the local literary circle as The
Sage of Concord," Emerson became the chief spokesman for
Transcendentalism, the American philosophic and literary movement.
Centered in New England during the 19th century, Transcendentalism was a
reaction against scientific rationalism.
Emersons first book, Nature (1836), is perhaps the best expression of
his Transcendentalism, the belief that everything in our worldeven a drop
of dewis a microcosm of the universe. His concept of the Over-Soula
Supreme Mind that every man and woman shareallowed
Transcendentalists to disregard external authority and to rely instead on
direct experience. Trust thyself," Emersons motto, became the code of

Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and W. E. Channing.

From 1842 to 1844, Emerson edited the Transcendentalist journal, The Dial.
Emerson wrote a poetic prose, ordering his essays by recurring themes
and images. His poetry, on the other hand, is often called harsh and didactic.
Among Emersons most well known works are Essays, First and Second
Series (1841, 1844). The First Series includes Emersons famous essay,
Self-Reliance," in which the writer instructs his listener to examine his
relationship with Nature and God, and to trust his own judgment above all
others.
Emersons other volumes include Poems (1847),Representative Men,
The Conduct of Life (1860), and English Traits (1865). His best-known
addresses are The American Scholar (1837) and The Divinity School
Address, which he delivered before the graduates of the Harvard Divinity
School, shocking Bostons conservative clergymen with his descriptions of
the divinity of man and the humanity of Jesus.
Emersons philosophy is characterized by its reliance on intuition as the
only way to comprehend reality, and his concepts owe much to the works of
Plotinus, Swedenborg, and Bhme. A believer in the divine sufficiency of the
individual," Emerson was a steady optimist. His refusal to grant the
existence of evil caused Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry
James, Sr., among others, to doubt his judgment. In spite of their
skepticism, Emersons beliefs are of central importance in the history of
American culture.
Ralph Waldo Emerson died of pneumonia on April 27, 1882.

THE RHODORA

On being asked, whence is the flower.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

The Rhodora by Ralph Waldo Emerson ponders why God creates

something beautiful if no one ever sees it. By the end of the poem, Emerson
seems to discover his answer to one of lifes most important questions
through the rhodora. Why are we here on Earth?
The rhodora is a deciduous plant that is native to northeastern United
States that bears pink flowers. The poem begins with a subheading of On
Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower? With the subheading, Emerson
establishes a question of where does the flower comes from or why is the
flower here on Earth. When Emerson encounters the rhodora, it is spreading
its leafless blooms in a damp nook. Emerson states To please the desert and
the sluggish brook. Due to the time of year, the rest of nature is not in its
prime, so it appears the rhodora is blooming in a desert. With this line,
Emerson is establishing that the rhodora had no reason to bloom. The
rhodora only exists for the sole purpose of pleasing the other elements of
nature such as the slow moving brook.
Emerson uses the rhyme scheme of AABBCDCDEEFFGHGH. Examples
of alliteration include repetitive use of the p sound in line 5 with purple
petals and the repetitive use of the r sound in phrases such as rival of
the rose. Assonance occurs in phrasing such as plume and cool with the
long U sound, as well as the repetition of the short I sound in line 15 in
simple ignorance.
These final last lines of the poem contain its thematic meaning. The
God who created both human and nature, from whence the flower came
from, compels us to the flower, the very same power. The essence, the core
of being, is what Emerson proposes we all strive for. Why should we ask the
details of the flower, when we should be concerns with where the flower
came from? Who gave the flower its essence? Seeking the essence and core
meaning is what drives life. It is what brings us to wake up every morning,
what brings us to have the urge to find ourselves day in and out.