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Literature

Why Emerson is Much Too Smart to be a Philosopher

Nancy Bunge considers Emerson as a philosopher, to show that he is a poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) not only made influential arguments for a distinctively American literature, his early admirers and students include Walt Whitman, generally considered America’s best poet, and Henry David Thoreau, who established American environmental literature with Walden. As a result, Emerson’s influence pervades American literature to this day. Emerson’s love of grand statement may invite some to see him as a philosopher, but this approach seriously short circuits his aims. Emerson and his disciples strove to awaken their readers from intellectual, emotional and spiritual torpor. Reducing his literary essays to tortured conceptual statements, such as Stanley Cavell produces, does Emerson no service, and interferes with achievement of this primary goal.

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