Yet another assignment (lost track of which I posted or not - but being that the PoMo course is ending these days, I have to pay some tribute to it) ........ 

In what follows, my endeavour is to depict briefly how Ralph Waldo Emerson's self-reliance ideas inscribe in the line started by one of the marking figures of Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. By comparing Kant's work What is Enligtenment? and Emerson's essay (on) Self-Reliance, it cannot be denied the common ground from which the two thinkers started their work (and how some of their ideas converge), nor can be ignored the step further made by Emerson in showing how  individuals can eiberate themselves from societal chains and conformity through self- trust and believing in themselves.
Enlightenment is man's leaving his self caused-immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another.,  coined Kant in his important work What is Enlightenment?, pointing out to the individual's strive in the cultivation of the mind and acquisition of knowledge, as important assets in becoming enlightened, in becoming free from any form of guidance (being that political, religious, etc.) and emergence out of being a ''minor'' as he called those who accept as given what other inflict as accepted teachings on them with the direct consequence of persisting in the mediocrity of imitation. Emerson meets in this respect with Kant's idea, he himself pleading for men to break from what given to them as norms and which stand against the personal nature in each of us: There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction (...) that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. In other words, both Kant and Emerson underline the importance of the self and self acknowlegment that there's only one way to feel free and rise above the social mimetic behaviours: cultivating that self (through knowledge in Kant's opinion -Sapere aude! , and by trusting oneself and one's own capacities and possibilities, as Emerson shows throughout his whole essay on self- reliance: Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.).
What is interesting though, for both thinkers, is that this cultivation of the self (despite the means they favour in achieving that) doesn't mean breaking up from society into isolation and ascetism or whatever other form of solitude, but they believe that this cultivation of the self is beneficial for the whole society: being enlightened (Kant) or nonconformist (Emerson) equals serving to better the world, to improve the way one feels and at the same time to help others understand what they have to do in the world. This means to some extent that those who trust themselves and are enlighted, serve as models in showing  ways of individual rise and eliberation, progress in the end: There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself. (I. Kant, What is Enlightenment?) ; Emerson's position might seem a bit more radical than Kant's , but it leads to the same core idea, that a man must not conform, yet he can indeed serve as a model in his struggle (with all the adversities which shall be pouring on one who dares speak and act against the tide of his/her time): All men have my blood, and I have all men's. (...) But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. ; the elevation and self-awareness comes not out of selfishness, but out of the crude truth that we must stay faithful to ourselves and our inner nature  while living in the truth of this revelation, as Emerson underlines: I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. (...) the law of consciousness abides (Emerson) and it cannot be ignored. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again, says Emerson; he talks about the rebirth of a world, not of a solitude, which supports the idea from which this paragraph started.
Thus, Kantian ideas of enlightenment can be identified in Emerson's wish for men to rise above their subdued statuses and/or imposed behavior, and live according to their own personal nature and in conformity with their principles, not the ones society imposes. The two thinkers meet in their wish for men to become free  and true to themselves.
Works cited:
(1) Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essays: First Series/Self-Reliance ( en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_First_Series/Self-Reiance )
(2) Kant, Immanuel - What is Enlightenment? ( ebooks.gutenberg.us/WorldeBookLibrary.com/whatenli.htm )