4 October 21 Emerson – “The Poet” and his Poetry

Ralph Waldo Emerson – An Exploration of the Essayist and “The Poet” – Segment 03

When we brush the dust away from a book’s cover, a journey begins that may end in any of ten thousand ways. The conclusion that emerges does not matter so much as the courage to listen to the author, a guide in the wilderness of words. And when we reach what appears to be our destination, we find only an outpost along an infinite road.

Last Spring, I started a new series for the Monday Poetry Post. The post’s focus is Ralph Waldo Emerson, specifically his essay, “The Poet,” and up to this point, a selection of one of his poems. The essay, “The Poet,” almost escaped my memory, but happily, in my browsing of the volumes of my Classics Club I noticed Emerson’s “Essays, Poems, and Addresses.” I am thoroughly enjoying my reacquaintance with this master within the Transcendentalist movement of New England. I hope you will, too. You can review my second post by clicking here, and today I present part three of "The Poet".

. . . The breadth of the problem is great, for the poet is representative.  He stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises us not of his wealth, but of the commonwealth. The young man reveres men of genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more. Nature enhances her beauty to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet is beholding her shows at the same time. He is isolated among his contemporaries, by truth and by his art, but with this consolation in his pursuits, that they will draw all men sooner or later. For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression. 

Notwithstanding this necessity to be published, adequate expression is rare. I know not how it is that we need an interpreter;  but the great majority of men seem to be minors, who have not yet come into possession of their own, or mutes, who cannot report the conversation they have had with nature. There is no man who does not anticipate a supersensual utility in the sun, and stars, earth, and water. These stand and wait to render him a peculiar service. But there is some obstruction, or some excess of phlegm in our constitution, which does not suffer them to yield the due effect.  Too feeble fall the impressions of nature on us to make us artists. Every touch should thrill. Every man should be so much an artist, that he could report in conversation what had befallen him. Yet, in our experience, the rays or appulses have sufficient force to arrive at the senses, but not enough to reach the quick, and compel the reproduction of themselves in speech. The poet is the person in whom these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest power to receive and to impart.

For the Universe has three children,  born at one time, which reappear, under different names, in every system of thought, whether they be called cause, operation, and effect; or, more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit. and the Son; but which we will call here, the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for the love of beauty. These three are equal. Each is that which he is essentially, so that he cannot be surmounted or analyzed, and each of these three has the power of the others latent in him, and his own patent.

The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.  He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted, or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive potentate, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit it to imitate the sayers. But Homer's words are as costly and admirable to Homer, as Agamemnon's victories are to Agamemnon. The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, reckoning the others, though primaries also, yet, in respect to him, secondaries and servants; as sitters or models in the studio of a painter, or as assistants who bring building materials to an architect.

JPS Commentary #3 on “The Poet.”

Yes, Emerson’s “The Poet,” speaks to poets in particular, but by solid extrapolation, he speaks to writers of all genres and all subjects – the bawdy, a possible exception. He left that to Walt Whitman. (Chuckle!) Emerson claims that the poet has a “superior calling.” I happen to agree, although I am painfully aware of the heartache, anger, and temporary joy of the poet/writer who sees too much, too deeply. 

The poet’s world is dangerous territory and can cause great anguish for people who seem to have a sensory array that picks up emotional subtleties and the meaning (meaninglessness?) of human activity more than the rest of the planet’s population. These are biased, and generalized statements, and leave out ecstatic saints, heroes, and leaders of justice movements. It also doesn’t include the uncomfortable fact that poetry proves inaccessible to many, and those who do understand it eschew its acquaintance as too highbrow, too harrowing, or too histrionic. 

That and more doesn’t mean that the poet can’t capture some portion of the truth of the great matters of life and death. Yes, there are “bad” poets in the literary sense. (Who is to judge?) There are also poets who have literally given their lives for their work. And our encounters with all poets/writers and their work may be well-considered to be taken on with gratitude and humility. Emerson would agree.