Divinity School Address

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a philosopher, poet, essayist, lecturer, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement of the 19th century. He was born in 1803 in Massachusetts, the son of a Unitarian Minister, and was educated at Harvard before attending the Divinity School some years later. He spent most of his years in Concord, Massachusetts. He was already a successful lecturer when he published his most known title, Nature. The book-length essay set down the foundation of Transcendentalism, arguing that looking into nature was the purest way to encounter God or the divine.

Though he never actually graduated from the Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister at Second Church, Boston. However, in 1832, Emerson resigned as a minister, citing a disagreement with the philosophical premise of the Lord’s Supper, as well as other ideas. Despite the disagreements he had with Unitarian practice, Emerson remained a well-known essayist and speaker on Unitarian thought when the graduating class of 1838 requested his presence at their graduation. Emerson chose this speech to espouse his controversial ideas, knowing that his audience was entrenched within the Unitarian denomination.

Emerson continued to publish and speak in his later years. In addition to Nature, he became known for essays such as “Self-Reliance” (1841), “The Over-Soul” (1841), and the “The American Scholar” (1837).