The American Scholar

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The American Scholar Questions and Answers

What is meant by job card and route card used in production planning function?  

What is the relevance of this "The American Scholar" quote? "Books are the best of things, well used; abused among the worst." How is it pertinent to works by Emerson, Melville, and Douglass?

What is the central theme of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay The American Scholar?

What are the main influences the scholar receives, according to Emerson?

Distinguish between a "scholar" and "bookworm" according to Emerson.  

In "The American Scholar," Emerson makes a clear distinction between a man thinking and a "mere thinker" or "delegated intellect." What is his critique of the "mere thinker"?

What does Emerson mean when he writes that "the one thing in the world of value is the active soul" in The American Scholar?

What are the main duties of the American scholar that Emerson mentioned in the speech?

What is a summary of "The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Can you provide the basis of the concept of "self-trust," individualism, which is a key for trancedentalist concepts (individual divity, imagination)? In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be—free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, “without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution.” Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquillity, amid dangerous times, arise from the presumption that, like children and women, his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles, to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; so is the fear worse. Manlike, let him turn and face it. Let him look into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin—see the whelping of this lion which lies no great way back; he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he will have made his hands meet on the other side and can henceforth defy it and pass on superior. The world is his who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold is there only by sufferance—by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.

Describe the characteristics in "The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How does Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar" relate to education today?

What is a definition of a "good scholar," and what are the duties and responsibilities of the American Scholar?

What are the scholar’s duties and how does he cope with them according to Emerson in the "American Scholar"?

Summarize the basic idea of Emerson's "The American Scholar."

Please provide a critical analysis of “The American Scholar.”

Explain the idea of transcendentalism as shown in Emerson's "The American Scholar."

How and why does the essay “The American Scholar” by Ralph Waldo Emerson promote “nonconformity, self-reliance, and anti-institutionalism” and, thus, explain the nature of his influence?

What trait did Emerson see as crucial for the scholar in "The American Scholar"?

How do the works "The American Scholar" and "Self-Reliance" show Emerson's reliance on nature and self?

Which are the rhretorical features that reveal Emerson's transcedentalist worldview in this quote from "American Scholar"? In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be—free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, “without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution.” Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquillity, amid dangerous times, arise from the presumption that, like children and women, his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles, to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; so is the fear worse. Manlike, let him turn and face it. Let him look into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin—see the whelping of this lion which lies no great way back; he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he will have made his hands meet on the other side and can henceforth defy it and pass on superior. The world is his who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold is there only by sufferance—by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.

What are Emerson's views on the "analogous political movement" in "The American Scholar"?

What was the condition of literature when Emerson gave his speech "The American Scholar"? What was the influence of the speech?

Can you provide a thesis statement in this paragraph Emerson's American Scholar? In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be—free and brave. Free even to the definition of freedom, “without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution.” Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquillity, amid dangerous times, arise from the presumption that, like children and women, his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles, to keep his courage up. So is the danger a danger still; so is the fear worse. Manlike, let him turn and face it. Let him look into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin—see the whelping of this lion which lies no great way back; he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent; he will have made his hands meet on the other side and can henceforth defy it and pass on superior. The world is his who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stone-blind custom, what overgrown error you behold is there only by sufferance—by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and you have already dealt it its mortal blow.

What is Emerson's view about the duties of the American Scholar?(What is the problem with the current state of being-how can one improve?)

What is the primary similarity or difference between Emerson and Arnold, specifically as it relates to their writings? Respectively, "American Scholar" and "Democracy."