Ralph Waldo Emerson's The Poet

In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Poet,” Emerson himself is expressing his own contemplations on what truly makes one a poet. He reflects on that person’s responsibility in humanity. He believes that a true poet expresses what others cannot, questions the universe, and is candid about human existence. Therefore he or she is truthful and can speak for all humanity. He uses his own eulogies throughout the essay and starts off with one about a “moody child.” This moody child is a foreshadowing of fundamental virtues of a poet, such as seeing the true nature of all. Then he discusses “divine ideas” and the Greek god Apollo. This has to do with America finding its own uniqueness and letting go of the European influence from the past. This is quite the

Emerson is saying that these viewers have restricted judgment. Meaning that men will only focus on the fire, the finished product, rather then what made the fire. And this goes much deeper than dry wood and friction the “remaining cold,” is the idea which actually sparked the fire (no pun intended.) Just like Frost’s fire and ice dependency you need the idea from the past to produce the tangible present, which causes a future. Frost’s single poem covers those three states of

And nature to the poet is not just merely trees, grass, and leaves, as Emerson explains, it is also the railroad laid on the tracks of mother earth. Nature will adapt to such structures just as the “children” will adapt to nature and nature to humankind and human’s ideas and creations such as the railroad, and later the