Self Reliance and Other Essays Lesson Plan

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a prolific poet, philosopher, and speaker who was generally regarded as the leader of the Transcendental movement. Born in Boston to a father who was a Unitarian minister and a mother whose Anglican background strongly influenced his education, Emerson grew up steeped in religion. He graduated from Harvard in 1820, became a schoolteacher and then a minister, but his struggles with doubt after his wife, Ellen, died of tuberculosis, led him to leave the ministry. Before taking another job, Emerson spent some time living on the support of friends and family, traveled to Europe, where he met Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Carlysle, and experimented with...