The American Scholar

¶ … American Scholar

Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a speech in front of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, August 31, 1837 called "The American Scholar." When reading through this essay, I found a lot of things which Emerson wrote to be difficult to understand yet it was a very powerful essay where Emerson tries to inspire the youth of America to cut themselves from the European roots. An analysis of his essay would include what confused me and why do not I understand what Emerson is talking about. What are Emerson's metaphors and what do they mean? One might ponder over the message that Emerson is trying to convey and thus it should be noted what he is trying to teach.

In this oration, he starts off with describing that Man was divided into men to help himself just as the hand was divided into fingers. This is quite confusing and contrary to many religious doctrines. Further Emerson portrays Man as something like God. He states that Man is the master of all trades and professions and only when Man was divided into men, "these functions are parceled out to individuals." He talks about Man being perfect and the men into who Man was divided to be full of flaws. Although I do agree that men have flaws and can never be perfect, the concept of Man whom he portrays nothing less than God is confusing and the point that Emerson wishes to convey by stating this is not understood by me. What I did not understand about his essay further on was when he talks about a school-boy and a Root and refers to it as being the "soul of his soul." To me the concept of a soul having a soul is beyond my understanding of the entire concept of soul. Emerson insists that books written by men are only written by men and not Man hence people should not follow them and use them as a source of inspiration. While using a book as a source of inspiration is agreed upon by me, claiming that a book is written by men and not the Perfect Man, does not mean that all forms of writings contain flaws in them. Many books give facts just the way they are and people do follow them because they are facts. This does not mean that people are making themselves slaves to such books. Whatever point that Emerson was trying to convey was certainly missed by me because of his difficult form of writing.

However in many places Emerson uses metaphors and describes things that are difficult to comprehend and relate to. The "young grub" metaphor which he used to relate to the poets was confusing and I could not figure out how this metaphor was used in connection to the poets. Another complicated metaphor used by Emerson in his writings where he talks of the human mind claiming "It is one central fire, which, flaming now out of the lips of Etna, lightens the capes of Sicily." Likewise Emerson uses such metaphors which are difficult to understand throughout his essay and created confusion for me during my reading of "The American Scholar." No doubt Emerson's essay is a remarkable piece of American literature, his style of writing and his complicated metaphors make certain parts of his essay hard to read.

Regarding a scholar Emerson says that a scholar is the one who resists vulgarity "by preserving and communicating heroic sentiment, noble biographies, melodious verse and conclusions of history." To the best of my understanding, a true scholar should be competent enough to point out the dangers in certain trends that are or might be prevalent in society. His role should not be restricted to "heroic sentiments." While at the same time Emerson talks about physical labor and how it is important to the scholar, I do not fully understand the reasons for such an emphasis.

CONCLUSION