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. With his, "eclectic and unsystematic thinking," Emerson was often criticized as a, "superficial popularizer." (Myerson) Though this criticism…
