The Representation Of Society In Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essay The Poet

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay The Poet focuses on his perception of a poet and a poet’s role in society. A particular part of the essay that I thought was important was Emerson’s view that a “man is only half himself, the other half is his expression” (Emerson). This is an important statement because it accurately reflects how mankind is perceived. Half of what makes a person is known only to the individual themselves. Only they know their true thoughts, feelings, motivations, and reasoning. On the other hand, half of what makes a person to society is how they choose to express these things. However, Emerson emphasizes that though man may be able to perceive the beauty of nature and the world at times, he often lacks the ability to put it into words that does it justice in order to express himself. It is from there that he proceeds to describe the role and function of a poet in society as the one with the ability to put such expressions into words and as thus the poetry is a representation of man.
An equally striking notion presented is that the subject of poetry is timeless “for poetry was all written before …show more content…
All poets speak for people other than themselves. Though they may have been individuals writing, they were and are popular because they express the ideas not only of themselves, but of the people who can find relief in reading what they were not able to formulate into words or verse on their own. For example, Anne Bradstreet wrote of her religion and her daily life and how one influenced the other. At the time, America was filled with highly religious people whose faith in God influenced all that they did. Another example could be Equiano’s narrative. Though it contains his own personal story, whether elaborated upon or not, from bondage to freedom, the sentiments included within it were shared by all those enslaved though they were unable to put it into words as he