There are several ways you could critically analyze Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar.” You could start by trying to talk about the relevance of his ideas. Many of his arguments appear to correlate to discussions and debates that are happening right now.
At one point, Emerson warns against the idolization of past writers like John Locke and Cicero. He says people tend to forget that such classic writers were people like them. You might relate Emerson’s point to how people right now might forget that politicians, celebrities, or influncers on social media with heaps of followers are also only people.
Emerson’s speech also connects to contemporary society when he emphasizes action. Remember, Emerson puts down the belief that a scholar is “unfit for any handiwork or public labor.” He believes it’s vital for a scholar to physically move around. You might link Emerson’s emphasis on action to current writers’ exhortation to engage with more than a computer or a phone.
If you’re not so interested in connecting Emerson’s ideas in “The American Scholar” to debates happening right now, you might want to do a critical analysis of what Emerson means by “life.” Near the middle, Emerson says that even when a painter no longer paints, even when a reader doesn’t want to read another book, they still have “the resource to live.” For him, living is a “total act” while thinking is a “partial act.” You might analyze what makes living “total” or complete. You could think about how if someone only paints, if they only read, or if they only labor, they might not be living a complete or “total” life according to Emerson.
The lecture is divided into three parts, each discussing a component of what makes a great scholar. The first is the study of nature. In nature Emerson sees the interconnection of all things, for example, how mathematic principles that arose from the observational human mind are discovered to in fact be the underpinnings, the workings, of the natural world. Emerson concludes that we are one with and inseparable from nature, saying,
The ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.
Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding . . . to create is proof of a divine presence.
Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence.
Life is our dictionary. Years are well spent in country labors; in town; in the insight into trades and manufactures; in frank intercourse with many men and women.
Further Reading
Ralph Waldo Emerson had just resigned from his position as a Unitarian minister before giving the address and was, to a degree, reflecting in it on his own role as lecturer, writer, and public intellectual. In the address, he considers what students must do to become his ideal of the American scholar. He divides the path of formation of character and intellect into three parts: nature, the mind of the past (i.e., books), and action. As a Unitarian, he saw God as immanent within nature and thus believed that by "reading" the natural world we could learn about God and morality. Books enable us to learn and build on the great thinkers of the past. Finally, we can only genuinely know moral truths by acting morally. Emerson rejects the mechanical and dehumanized world of industrial society along with a purely abstract conception of knowledge.