This is the question I’ve chosen to take on for our next assignment. I’ve already completed my paper, but I’m curious to see what the rest of you think about it because I’m really invested now!

Emerson wrote of his desire to find a poet “without impediment, who sees and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of experience, and is representative of man.” Here, he asks to find someone who is able to connect with the world unrestrictedly and freely, a poet who can understand and dutifully transcribe the diversity of life in the world around them.

While this sense of desire for inhibited writing serves as a nod to transcendentalism and the need for a poet to be connected with nature and the universe, it can also be read as Emerson wanting to see an American poet break the bounds of traditional poetry. It takes a great deal of talent to tap into the stream of divinity from which poets find their voices, but even more strength to create something revolutionary. 

In your opinion, do you think Walt Whitman was able to become what Emerson wanted in an American poet, or did he fall short?

Walt Whitman: Emerson’s American Poet?
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