Emerson Essays (1287 words) - Transcendentalism, Lecturers, Mystics

Emerson Bazemore 1 From wise men the world inherits a literature of wisdom, characterized less by its scheduled education than by its strength and shortness of statement. Thought provoking and discerning, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a cynical world an unbiased perspective on human frailty. Emerson first and foremost was a poet. He has not written a line which is not conceived in the interest of mankind. He never writes in the interest of a section, of a party, of a church, or a man, always in the interest of mankind.? (Carlyle 19) From Emerson's poetry the reader is able to derive a central theme of idealism and reality. Emerson was ?a poet that sings to us with thoughts beyond his song.? (Howe) His never ending search for immortality was always resolved by his reencounter with reality. In his poem ?Days? he expresses the purely ideal or mystical half of his thoughts. ?Days? suggests both points of view and is structurally divided into two parts. The first six lines personify the ?Days? as demigods who offer the gifts of life to mortals. Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, muffled and dumb, like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts, after his will,-- Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all. Emerson is saying here that the individual days arranged in an endless running bring man indulgences and plainness alike. They bring whatever is the will of man. Bazemore 2 Emerson's problem with this is that it is up to him to claim responsibility for his actions. These supreme beings simply provide a steadfast pace unchanging and unyielding. They say nothing and make no efforts to intervene in man's path. They claim time, but so short. The time they provide is not long enough, and that is why they are hypocrites, thus providing Emerson's confrontation with perfection. In the last five lines he describes his actual failure to realize the value of these gifts, and then his ideal recognition of this mortal failure. Man is depicted as a tragic hero in ?Days.? I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forget my morning wishes, hastily took a few herbs and apples, And the Day turned and departed silent. I, too late, under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. (Emerson 437) Emerson here refers to how he looks at these beings or demigods, with resentment. He has high expectations in the morning but sees how time has not given him the means necessary. He almost gives the ?Days? an evil regard and expects a reply, but instead the ?Days? leave without a word. He sees the errors of his ways and sees how because he has given the ?Days? so much thought he has wasted the day, and thus executes the last line where he indicates he ?saw the scorn.? (Emerson 437) Again in another well-renown poem by Emerson, ?Rhodora,? the theme of self-reliance is depicted by combining idealistic and realistic virtues. He gives a flower the Bazemore 3 appeal of a prefect being. This time, however, his technique is reversed from the previous poem. The first lines express the normality of the flower. He says, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leaflets Blooms in a damp nook, to please the desert And the sluggish brook. (Emerson) Nothing, thus far, has portrayed the flower as anything but a delightful surprise. He speaks of the happiness it has brought to the scene, but has not given it any unusual attributes. Then he grants that this flower is the greatest thing to ever happen to the world. Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why this charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being? In another critically acclaimed poem by Emerson, ?Forbearance?, he dwells on the idea of man's nature of selfishness and heartlessness Hast thou named all the birds without a gun? Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk? At rich men's tables eaten bread and pulse? Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust? Bazemore 4 And loved so well a high behavior, In man or maid, that though from speech refrained, Nobility more nobly to repay? O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine! (Emerson