Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803–82),
American poet and essayist. Shakespeare was foremost among the ‘shades’ to accompany Emerson for 40 years in his study at Concorde. He read contemporary criticism and the publications of the Shakespeare Society, remaining convinced that Shakespeare's truth was accessible through the text and not through secondary materials. In ‘Shakspere; or, The Poet’ in Representative Men (1850) Emerson the puritan regrets that Shakespeare's life is not more exemplary and his plays more edifying; nevertheless acknowledging the ‘first poet of the world’.

Tom Matheson