diary

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Monday, 12th February 2018
Time: 11: 15 P.M.
Dear Diary,
Today I learned some interesting facts about the philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, precisely from the way he perceives the world in his essay, “The Poet.” The manner in which Emerson defines the poet and his/her occupation is both bewildering and exciting.
Emerson looks at the occupation of the poet as some higher calling detached from material influences of this physical world or reality. This is clear from the beginning when he says, “Those who are esteemed umpires of taste,” referring to the people who consider themselves critics, reviewers, and observers with an affinity for what is elegant and artistic, usually understand little of what poetry is genuinely about (Emerson 1). Emerson goes further to call these people out as shallow in their feigned interpretations. They are people who look at half-truths, who cannot comprehend the bigger picture in these simple truths. These critics are merely equipped with limited knowledge of rules about how something should be, and not about what it is. Emerson resolutely dismisses these people as being shallow in their perception of the doctrine of beauty (Emerson 8).
In The Poet, Emerson goes to say that the poet is like the full realization of human, complete man and that the none-poets are partial in the sense of what “Man” entails. The poet is the man of beauty who has transcended physical existence and was connected to a much higher existence intertwined with nature.

He argues that nature is in every man just like it is outside and can be perceived. The lack of understanding the deeper meaning of every sensuous fact brings a man to the same problem where he alienates physical from spiritual, and that is the reason they take body and soul to be two separate entities when in fact, one gives rise to the other. The body is merely an extension of the soul, and both are one, with the soul reflecting through the body and the body acting by the soul (Emerson 5). The poet, therefore, has arrived at this level of understanding and he is the physical representation of nature to fellow men.
He/she is the one capable of interpreting the conversations held with nature considering the majority of people (none-poets) are like minors who have not been able to develop into their capabilities of understanding nature’s impressions. They can hardly report on what they have perceived in nature, and so these average men are in need of poets to interpret this understanding.
According to Emerson, the universe has three children called by different names which he calls the Knower, the Doer and the Sayer (Emerson 2). This means that the universe has a specific plane of energy or source and that the second part is the spiritual form which gives birth to impressions and truths. The last part of the universe being the poet who is in fact in touch with the very source that is the plain energy of the world. So the poet can perceive and impart the knowledge of the world to the average men. The poet is solitary, retreating to seclusion to contemplate nature’s calling, but he’s also a significant component of the people because he is their bridge to a higher understanding.
I said before that Emerson’s thoughtful observations about the essence of a real poem and the poet as its vessel are bewildering and at the same time entertaining, this is where this bewilderment comes in. Emerson claims that “beauty is the creator of the universe,” (Emerson 3). This statement possibly means that beauty is the original essence of truth and that this eternal reality as seen in the purity of nature, is what created or constitutes the universe.
In this essay, Emerson is mostly trying to provide insight into what the actual poem and its relationship to the vessel—the poet—and humanity in general. He believes that the true poetry existed long before time, meaning that it was never in a word-form but lived eternally in a different plane in the soul of the universe. Different realm things exist in energy form or astral form. Therefore the poet as a medium of some sort to this higher understanding, can get in touch with this primal energy of the universe and tries to translate the spirit of the poem into words. Since the poem exists in a spiritual form, often when we try to capture it in words, it limits the original energy from materializing.
The poet also, in the process of translation, ends up incorporating little bits of himself, and consequently, the poem loses something of its true essence. However, this statement tells us that Emerson in the end also believes that the poet is not complete in his capturing of the essence of the poem. As a poet himself, he is letting us see that he is not equipped to accurately represent the voice of nature, that it goes much deeper than that. And in the end, when the poet finally reaches the proper level of awareness and reality of nature’s truths, it would’ve been a journey worth taking.
Works Cited
Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Essays: Second Series” Saylor.org, 1844