Abstract

As a prodigious American intellectual, rhetorician, and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson pursued many ideas. This dissertation examined one particularly significant theme in his writings: what I called "endings." A series of tragic and untimely deaths of loved ones caused him to take an extensive interest in the idea of endings. As for the literature that surrounds Emerson, some scholars have directly discussed his reaction to loss, while others have indirectly discussed a corollary theme, incompleteness. These studies overlook the extensive connection between his experience with loss and his consideration of endings and, equally as important, how his consideration of endings mutated and transformed during his intellectual career. The central lesson that we can draw from this study is that these traumatic experiences with loss made Emerson averse to endings, an aversion so significant that it not only intersects his intellectual career but also constitutes a major theme that threads his corpus. After closer examination of Emerson's contemplation with endings, we can conclude that death underlies his embrace of life. A more insightful and appreciative way to see this is that this dissertation reveals two closely related dialectics at the center of Emerson's life as a thinker: death and life and, closely related, endings and beginnings. His life was spent in dialogue with these two dialectical oppositions