It’s not often that a commencement speech to a class of six makes waves. But TODAY IN HISTORY, on July 15, 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson managed that feat.
In what is known as the “Divinity School Address” a commencement speech made to the Harvard Divinity School’s class of six, Emerson questioned Jesus’ divinity, discounted biblical accounts of miracles, and argued that moral intuition was more important than religious belief. The leaders of the Harvard Divinity School –and most Protestant clergymen in America– were not amused.
Born on May 25, 1803, Ralph Waldo Emerson was a uniquely American essayist, critic, poet, and popular philosopher. One of the most significant writers in American history, his ideas influenced writers who knew him and generations who followed him. Born in Boston, Emerson was the son of a Unitarian minister. His grandfather had been the minister of the church in Concord, Mass. on the morning of Apil 19th, 1775 when the American Revolution began.
In 1829, he was ordained a Unitarian pastor, but resigned his pulpit in 1832 to begin the career as a writer and lecturer that made him famous. What do you know about this unique American voice? Test yourself with a quick quiz from Don’t Know Much About Anything
1. “And fired the shot heard round the world” may be Emerson’s most famous line of poetry. What event did it commemorate?
2. What famous writer famed for civil disobedience once worked as Emerson’s handyman?
3. Fill in the blank: In one famous essay, Emerson wrote, “A _________ _________ is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
4. In Self-Reliance, he wrote “Whoso would be a man, must be a _____________.”
5. A former minister, Emerson originated a religious philosophy. What was it?
Answers
1. The Hymn Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument was written in 1836, 60 years after the Battles of Concord and Lexington that started the American Revolution.
2. Henry David Thoreau, who graduated from Harvard and met Emerson, who encouraged him to write, gave him useful criticism, and employed him as a gardener.
3. The missing words are “foolish consistency” from the essay “Self-Reliance.”
4. nonconformist
5. Transcendentalism. He favored a new religion founded in nature and fulfilled by direct, mystical intuition of God. Transcendentalists believed that organized Christian churches interfered with the relationship between a person and God.
If you like the world of books, literature, poetry and ideas, watch for Don’t Know Much About Literature, available on July 28.
