Chapter Ralph Waldo Emerson of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

The Second Series of Essays, published in 1844, included The Poet, Experience, Character, Manners, Gifts, Nature (a second handling of this theme), Politics, Nominalist and Realist, and The New England Reformers.

Representative Men and English Traits.

In 1847, a cordial invitation to address lyceum audiences in England and Scotland led to a second trip across the Atlantic. The visit was a success. Emerson delivered many lectures, was warmly received, renewed the acquaintance with Carlyle, and made many new friends. The material of these lectures appeared in 1850 under the title Representative Men. The opening chapter is on the uses of great men -- their most efficient and enduring service being that of introducing moral truths into the general mind. The characters selected for study and interpretation are: Plato, or the Philosopher; Swedenborg, or the Mystic; Montaigne, or the Sceptic; Shakespeare, or the Poet; Napoleon, or the Man of the World, and Goethe, or the Writer. While the volume suggests a comparison with Carlyle's Heroes and Hero- Worship, it will be seen that the plan and idea of Emerson's work are entirely different from his.

In English Traits (1856), Emerson produced a thoughtful, appreciative, and not uncritical study of British personality and the significance of the national character. These two volumes stand by themselves as the only works of the essayist having a formal structure and definite plan.

The Poet.

The first collection of Emerson's poems appeared in 1846. He had been writing verse for many years, and some of his best-known compositions, The Problem, Woodnotes, The Sphinx, and others, had appeared in The Dial. Some, like the famous Concord Hymn, had been heard upon notable occasions. In 1867, a second collection appeared under the title May-Day and Other Pieces.

The poetry of Emerson is, as one would expect to And it, intellectual, subjective, abstract. It is unemotional and often austere. "I do not belong to the poets, but only to a low department of literature, the reporters, suburban men," Emerson had declared, writing to Carlyle. Again he had said with more of justice to his gift, "I am born a poet, of a low class, without doubt, yet a poet. That is my nature and my vocation." While criticism has often joined in the poet's own depreciation of his power, there are also many who find the fire of genuine poetic genius in his verse. Stedman calls him "our most typical and inspiring poet." The thought, the substance of his verse has the originality and vital strength of all his discourse; the poetical form is uneven.

Thus does Emerson write of the poet:--

"Great is the art,
Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
`Pass in, pass in,' the angels say,
`In to the upper doors,
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise
By the stairway of surprise.'"¹

There are numerous passages of wonderful simplicity and beauty in the poetry of Emerson: lines like the familiar quatrain in Voluntaries,

"So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can";

-- and the perfect lines in Woodnotes:--