Ralph Waldo Emerson - Greatest American Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson is quite possibly the most influential poet ever, let alone of just his time. He has put forth many ideas on the self and promotes transcendentalism throughout all his works. He is fully due credit for shaping what is now a solid American literary style and idea. Without Emerson, people like Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and Walt Whitman would never have been what they were. …

…or Thoreau that we know today. Transcendentalism definitely wouldn't be what it is today. He was an outspoken individual on all the things that were controversial in his time that are a vast majority today. Such that he was a very strong abolitionist being outspoken when most were quiet. He also worked very hard for women's rights, saying that if "Man is the sun; woman the moon. Man is the subject; women the object..."(Warren)