a little something about Emerson

Some Emerson (Ralph Waldo that is)

Since in class we’ve been talking about what is an author, what is literature, reading and such, I thought about those things as I read today’s assignment.

Emerson seems to place a lot of emphasis on creativity and original thoughts. From what I understand, which may not be much, there is a right way and a wrong way of reading. On page 722 from “The American Scholar” Emerson says, “Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading.” The reader should be able to take something out of what he reads. “One must be an inventor to read well” (723). For me that means you have to work to get something out of it. You have to go beyond the surface text.

Sometimes, what we read affects what we get out of the text. According to Emerson we can “be fed by any knowledge” (723), just as the body “can be nourished by any food” (723). But if what we read is not as nourishing, we have to work harder to feed ourselves.

In Emerson’s essay “The Poet” we find Emerson’s theory about what it means to be a poet, and in my interpretation I link the word author with poet. For a poet to be a true one he/she must “announce that which no man has foretold” (726). Again this idea of originality and creativity come into play. One illustration Emerson gives is about starting a fire. You can’t just rub some sticks together and create smoke, you have to create something that will last and give off something, like fire. For Emerson it is not the artistic craft of meter and rhythm that give a poem its meaning. A poet creates a poem where the argument or content comes alive and speaks to people.

The poet also seems to observe the world and “articulates” its contents. He studies nature and sees the symbols in it. From what I gather the poet is supposed to take the tangible thins of this world and translate it into man’s soul, so that when he reads a poem he feels it and it moves him.