Scholar of the World
In 1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson gave an oration to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge, addressing the topic of the American scholar. In the address, Emerson stirred up controversy by condemning books. He claims that “Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst” (Emerson 59). The premise of “The American Scholar” is that scholars can learn more from experiencing the world firsthand than they can from reading about the world in books. However, in later essays, Emerson contradicts himself. In “Shakespeare or the Poet,” while he makes the observation that there is no real originality, he makes the observation without criticism. In “Quotation and Originality,” he similarly says, “All things are in flux. It is inevitable that you are indebted to the past. You are fed and formed by it” (329). When trying to reconcile these two opposing ideas, the one resolution that seems to work is that the scholar has to strike a balance between studying books and going out into the world himself.
Emerson’s argument against books is most concentrated in the second section of “The American Scholar.” He concedes that books can be extremely beneficial, but the amount of benefit a book can provide “depends on how far the process had gone, transmuting life into truth” (59). His problem is with the way scholars take the words of past thinkers as gospel, never attempting to form their own opinions and views:
Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm. (59)
The danger, Emerson asserts, is that academia’s concentration on studying books so devotedly stifles the scholar’s mind, and therefore no new ideas are generated. For that reason, Emerson insists that books “are for the scholar’s idle times” (60) and the majority of the scholar’s waking hours should be spent away from the written word.
Emerson expounds on the idea of taking action in the third section of “The American Scholar.” “Action,” Emerson tells us, “is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth” (61). In order to become a true scholar, one must have experiences. One cannot expect to understand the world simply by reading another person’s account of it, simply because each person’s perspective of the world is unique. Each person’s background, how they are raised, where they live, contribute to the way they view the world. Only reading other people’s accounts of the world silences the scholar’s own individual voice. Emerson says of his own experiences, “The world—this shadow of the soul, or other me, lies wide around. Its attractions are the keys which unlock my thoughts and make me acquainted with myself” (61). Here, Emerson emphasizes the potential for personal growth when one experiences the world. By interacting with the world, one learns not only about the world, but about themselves through their reactions to the world.
The “other me” or “not me” as it is sometimes referred to also appears in Emerson’s work Nature. According to Emerson, the “not me” encompasses everything in the universe outside of the individual soul, and can be put into the category of “nature.” Emerson values the communion between the soul and nature:
In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,–no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, –my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,–all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball, I am nothing, I see all the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. (29).
In Emerson’s view, one can reach elevated states of being by simply experiencing nature. The “mean egotism” dissipates and one loses himself to the beauty and purity of the world around him. By disconnecting from oneself and immersing oneself into the world around him, one’s mind is opened to otherworldly thoughts, and it circles back and expands his own mind. It is this kind of spiritual experience that the scholar cannot adequately know vicariously through a book; he must live it firsthand, and in Emerson’s mind it is an invaluable experience.
For all of Emerson’s arguments against the scholar immersing himself in books, he also makes points embracing the idea that writers learn almost everything from what has come before them. In “Quotation and Originality,” he states this, not in negativity, but as a neutral fact:
Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest or private addition so rare and insignificant,–and this commonly on the ground of other reading or hearing,–that, in large sense, one would say there is no pure originality. All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. (320)
It is possible that at this point in his writing, Emerson has surrendered to the fact that the majority of academia has succumbed to the bookworm tendency. But when read without considering his earlier opinions in “The American Scholar,” it sounds as if Emerson recognizes the need for past work to fuel new production. Instead of the idea that creativity has stagnated, one can now see it as more of a cross-generational collaboration between the scholar of the current generation and the writers of the past whose works the scholar has read. The experiences that Emerson urges the scholar to have, and the unique perspective the scholar gains from these experiences, allow the scholar to take the ideas of the past and transform them into something new.
“Shakespeare, or the Poet” also discusses this transformation of the old into the new. Emerson points out that even a revered writer such as Shakespeare drew his inspiration from preexisting tales. What allows the scholar to take an old tale and put his own twist on it is his tie to his own society:
He finds himself in the river of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities of his contemporaries. He stands where all the eyes of men look one way, and their hands all point in the direction in which he should go. (248)
One can see Emerson’s two ideas—that scholars can neither spend their entire lives studying books, nor escape the inevitable repetition of old ideas—reaching a compromise in “Shakespeare, or the Poet.” It is the bridging of unique experience and tradition by modern society that alleviates the possibility of stagnation. Everything that is old can be recycled and made anew by each scholar’s singular perception of society.
Emerson’s essays “American Scholar,” “Quotation and Originality,” and “Shakespeare, or the Poet” have conflicting but valid points. The true scholar cannot rely solely on books to reveal all the mysteries of the world, and it certainly does not do the scholar any good to parrot the thoughts of writers that came before him. Conversely, true originality is scarce and it is almost inescapable that writers will fall back on old paradigms. The reconciliation is to use one’s own experiences to reconstruct the ideas of the past. As Emerson states, “Each age…must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding” (59). When the scholar uses what he has read, and infuses it with his own perception, the result is a timeless transmutation of life into truth.
Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Emerson’s Prose & Poetry. Ed. Joel Porte and Saundra Morris.
“Nature” pp 27-55. New York (2001).
“The American Scholar” pp 56-69.
“Shakspeare or the Poet” pp. 247-260
“Quotation and Originality” pp 319-330 Norton. New York (2001).
