- For the publication of Phi Beta Kappa, see The American Scholar (magazine)
The American Scholar is the literary quarterly of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, founded in 1932. The journal has won four National Magazine Awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors: Essays, 1999 and 2003; General Excellence , 2000; Feature Writing, 2006...
"
The American Scholar" was a speech given by
Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s...
on August 31, 1837, to the
Phi Beta Kappa SocietyThe Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society with missions to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences; and for induction of the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William...
in
CambridgeCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, a nexus of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Notably, Cambridge is home to two internationally prominent...
,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
. He was invited to speak in recognition of his groundbreaking work
Nature, published a year earlier, in which he established a new way for America's fledgling society to regard the world. Sixty years after declaring independence, American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe, and Emerson, for possibly the first time in the country's history, provided a visionary philosophical framework for escaping "from under its iron lids" and building a new, distinctly American cultural identity.
Emerson uses
TranscendentalistTranscendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century...
and romantic views to get his points across by explaining a true American scholar's relationship to nature.
Discussion
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- For the publication of Phi Beta Kappa, see The American Scholar (magazine)
The American Scholar is the literary quarterly of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, founded in 1932. The journal has won four National Magazine Awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors: Essays, 1999 and 2003; General Excellence , 2000; Feature Writing, 2006...
"
The American Scholar" was a speech given by
Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s...
on August 31, 1837, to the
Phi Beta Kappa SocietyThe Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society with missions to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences; and for induction of the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William...
in
CambridgeCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, a nexus of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Notably, Cambridge is home to two internationally prominent...
,
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
. He was invited to speak in recognition of his groundbreaking work
Nature, published a year earlier, in which he established a new way for America's fledgling society to regard the world. Sixty years after declaring independence, American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe, and Emerson, for possibly the first time in the country's history, provided a visionary philosophical framework for escaping "from under its iron lids" and building a new, distinctly American cultural identity.
Summary
Emerson uses
TranscendentalistTranscendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century...
and romantic views to get his points across by explaining a true American scholar's relationship to nature. There are a few key points he makes that flesh out this vision:
- We are all fragments, "as the hand is divided into fingers", of a greater creature, which is mankind itself, "a doctrine ever new and sublime".
- An individual may live in either of two states. In one, the busy, "divided" or "degenerate" state, he does not "possess himself" but identifies with his occupation or a monotonous action; in the other, "right" state, he is elevated to "Man", at one with all mankind.
- To achieve this higher state of mind, the modern American scholar must reject old ideas and think for him or herself, to become "Man Thinking" rather than "a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking", "the victim of society", "the sluggard intellect of this continent".
- "The American Scholar" has an obligation, as "Man Thinking", within this "One Man" concept, to see the world clearly, not severely influenced by traditional/historical views, and to broaden his understanding of the world from fresh eyes, to "defer never to the popular cry."
- The scholar's education consists of three pursuits:
- To investigate and to understand nature, which includes the scholar's own mind and person.
- To study the "mind of the past": to read literature, to observe art, to study institutions.
- To take action and to interact with the world; not to become the recluse thinker commenting from afar.
- "The office [the duty] of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances."
Importance
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. , was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the "Breakfast-Table" series, which began with The Autocrat...
declared this speech to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence".
Building on the growing attention he was receiving from the essay
Nature, this speech solidified Emerson's popularity and weight in America, a level of reverence he would hold through out the rest of his life. Phi Beta Kappa's
literary quarterlyThe American Scholar is the literary quarterly of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, founded in 1932. The journal has won four National Magazine Awards from the American Society of Magazine Editors: Essays, 1999 and 2003; General Excellence , 2000; Feature Writing, 2006...
, "The American Scholar", was named after the speech.
See also
- Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century...
- Humanism
Humanism is a perspective common to a wide range of ethical stances that attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities, particularly rationality. Although the word has many senses, its meaning comes into focus when contrasted to the supernatural or to appeals to authority...
- Romanticism
Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution...
- Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from sense experience. Empiricism is one of several competing views about how we know "things," part of the branch of philosophy called epistemology, or "the Theory of Knowledge"...
- American Culture
The development of the culture of the United States of America — History, Holidays, Sports, Religion, Cuisine, Literature, Poetry, Music, Dance, Visual Arts, Cinema, and Architecture — has been marked by a tension between two strong sources of inspiration: European ideals, especially British, and...
Further reading
- Kenneth Sacks: Understanding Emerson: "The American Scholar" and His Struggle For Self-Reliance. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003. 199 pages
External links