Dual critique: “The American Scholar” and “The Poet”

Emerson begins “The American Scholar” by declaring, “I accept the topic which not only usage, but the nature of our association, seem to prescribe to this day – the AMERICAN SCHOLAR” (53). These opening lines are incredibly specific; the atmosphere in which he finds himself has formed the topic of his discourse. The prescriptive nature of his lecture, then, implies that no other topic would have been as pertinent as his is. As the address continues, Emerson guides the reader to a clearly defined picture of the American Scholar: “In the right state, he is Man Thinking” (54). Just as this address establishes a currency in the opening paragraphs, so too does the American Scholar. He is defined by his own thoughts, in that moment, discarding past thoughts or those of others. In this line, Emerson also reveals to the reader the availability of that relation to one’s thought. He does not specify who may become the American Scholar or, more significantly, who may not.

[...] In American Scholar”, thought leads directly to action and constructs our relationship to the universe. Emerson completely revises that definition in Poet.” Thought has become a prison; we are unable to make sense of it until the Poet liberates us from our fetters. Thus the detachment of the later essay serves not only to separate us from its content, but also from ourselves. What we are ordered to take in American Scholar” is arrogated to the Poet, and our hope of an unmediated relationship to the universe is completely dispelled. [...]

[...] That displacement serves to distance us from nature, and ultimately from ourselves, indicating the secondhand access that clashes with the unmediated access described in American Scholar.” If nature is used as a symbol in language itself consequently reflects that distance. Nature’s offering herself to the Poet as a “picture- language” leads to the creation of types; and Emerson claims that the second value assigned to the object supersedes the or original, value. Thus language, in its very creation, constructs and represents the distance between nature and our perception of it. [...]

[...] The sarcasm in American Scholar”—which describes the relationship between men of the world and the ‘great’ man—has more significance for the audience in that context because it has been previously informed as to the alternate and desired image. Here we are only given what Emerson does not value, and thus that negative image has less of an impact because we have no context in which to place it. That displacement disorients us as we begin reading, and we are unable to shed it completely. [...]