Ralph Waldo Emerson is the ( 1 ) of American ( 2 ).In a series of strikingly original essays, written in the middle of nineteenth century, he ( 3 ) changed the way that America saw its cultural and artistic possibilities, and he enabled a ( 4 ) from transatlantic literary traditions. We have listened too long …, he wrote. “to the courtly muses of Europe.” Emerson’s abjection of cultural traditions brought about what one contemporary called “America’s ( 5 ) declaration of independence."