Ralph Waldo Emerson is raised on a pedestal in thinking about the transcendentalist movement. There is no need to look farther than his writing to understand. Emerson’s use of rhetorical terms throughout his works touch and move the reader in just the way he wants, as such in his piece “Self Reliance.” Emerson’s brief anecdote instils a sense of individuality when he praises Washington Allston for the original content that he has created. Emerson talks about the verses he read the other day and his reflection of the value they hold and why. He says that it’s not so important what the words are saying as to if they’re new and original. Emerson also plans key sentence structure and punctuation to set things apart, or elevate them. He uses hyphens