"The Poet" and "Song of Myself"

Paper Summary:

This paper studies the life and works and accomplishments of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It studies his essay "The Poet" and describes his idealistic vision of the life of a poet. It also describes the 19th-century artistic and philosophical movement called transcendentalism that he founded. Throughout this paper, the author compares Emerson's ideals to Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." It also examines Ralph Waldo Emerson's strong influence and effect on American society.

From the Paper:

"Ralph Waldo Emerson's idealized and mesmerizing description of the role and life of the poet in his essay "The Poet" describes not only the particular calling and obligation of those who choose to follow the poetic muses but "also because of Emerson's own influence on the writings of Americans who followed him" proved to be a strongly proscriptive piece of advice for other poets and writers in the decades after Emerson helped to found the 19th-century artistic and philosophical movement called Transcendentalism. The Transcendentalists defined themselves by their belief in a highly idealistic and fundamentally coherent system of belief in the essential unity of all things on earth "the connection of each thing to its neighbor" as well as a belief in the absolute importance of personal experience and insight (as opposed to knowledge and beliefs gained through formal logic and formal education) and the essential goodness of humanity."

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