One Must Be An Inventor To Read Well

The writer, poet, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson stated “One must be an inventor to read well.” To interpret this quote we must infer what Emerson implied by the term “inventor”. In the context of literature and comprehension, I see the inventor as an imaginer, one who thinks beyond the explicit. To observe the simple and complexify it, or to shape the complex into something simple. In its simplest form, to read is to see letters, make words of them, and know the meaning of these words. To read well requires an extra step: transcendence.
As a student of philosophy, I have studied transcendentalism and Emerson’s role in it’s foundation. Applying his views to literature makes perfect sense - or it does if I invent a reason for it to. Transcendentalist