Representative Men: Seven Lectures - Including: Uses of Great Men, Plato or the Philosopher, Swedenborg or the Mystic, Montaigne or the Skeptic, Shakspeare or the Poet, Napoleon Man of the World AND Goethe or the Writer by Ralph Waldo Emerson The definitive collection of Emerson's major speeches, essays, and poetry, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson chronicles the life's work of a true "American Scholar." As one of the architects of the transcendentalist movement, Emerson embraced a philosophy that championed the individual, emphasized independent thought, and prized "the splendid labyrinth of one's own perceptions." More than any writer of his time, he forged a style distinct from his European predecessors and embodied and defined what it meant to be an American. Matthew Arnold called Emerson's essays "the most important work done in prose."