The Poetry of Emerson (Masterplots, Definitive Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
- First Published: 1847
- Genres: Poetry
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Nature, Authors or writers, Nineteenth century, Literature, Poetry or poets, Romanticism, Transcendentalism
Critical Evaluation:
In his essay “The Poet,” Emerson expresses his belief that poetry, like any art, should be organic rather than simply metrically or musically beautiful:
For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing. . . . The poet has a new thought: he has a whole new experience to unfold; he will tell us how it was with him, and all men will be the richer in his fortune.
It is...
[The entire page is 2041 words long]
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