Hi friends! So something I’ve been thinking about after reading Emerson is that the poet is supposed to be a “pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body”. They’re supposed to ignore any substitutes of “the true nectar”, such as wine, mead, narcotics, etc. Emerson says that only those who can truly be sensitive to the senses and hear the mutterings of all air and nature around them can successfully and authentically transcribe the poetry that came before us. We talked about eyes and seeing during our conversation in class today, and how the poet needs to see through his own eyes while listening to the divine. I thought it would also be interesting to talk about the consumption of the divine, and how the poet gets to take his own perceptions of the world and almost taint what the Gods want him to write by giving his own view on things or substituting phrasing. I really liked the use of truth and purity in Emerson’s essay because it allowed me to get a sense of how important it is for the poet to be divine and to subject himself to the true duties of the poet. He then takes this idea of divinity and explains how the poet needs to live a simpler life than deserved and be delighted by the most common and simple influences that nature has to give. I think that this section as a whole gave me a better sense of what Emerson and the transcendentalism movement really focuses on in terms of both the scholar and the poet!

The true nectar and other ramblings
Tagged on:         

51 thoughts on “The true nectar and other ramblings”

Leave a Reply

css.php