There is then creative reading as well as creative writing
There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the
mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read
becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly
significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We
then see, what is always true, that, as the seer’s hour of vision is
short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance,
the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or
Shakspeare, only that least part, — only the authentic utterances of
the oracle; — all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times
Plato’s and Shakspeare’s.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The American Scholar
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The American Scholar
1 comment:
‘’Trust thyself:every heart vibrates to that iron string.Accept the place the divine Providence has found for you;the society of your contemporaries,the connexion of events.Great men have always done so and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age,betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart,working through their hands,predominating all their being.And we are now men,and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner,not cowards fleeing before a revolution,but guides,redeemers,and benefactors,obeying the almighty effort,and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.
Throughout the Self-Reliance, Emerson asks for his audience to trust to themselves in a commanding way, which can also be perceived as a way of showing the gleam of the light.Man should trust himself because the power comes from the within not from the outside.The iron string is a good metaphorical phrase used probably to refer to the power which is indeed inborn.Man should consider his place as if the God,the divine Providence created it specially for him which comes to mean that relying on yourself is forgetting about the others. Thus, it means ignoring the society and the traditions that is how great men do according to Emerson otherwise, how it would be possible to pursue your ^^ own ^^thoughts. Great men confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, this is very well resembled to a behaviour of a child so what they generally do is finding out their own intuition and following that path. The way children play games and put rules to those games regardless of the real world as they are already unaware of what goes around. Thus, if we are to talk about the ‘absolute trustworthy’ perception, the place of it is at the heart. Further, in the same trancendent destiny, beyond the imagination if a man could go to that point, the flow of thoughts will come and the spirit will move on so it will be able to fight with the dark and bring the light, the truth and the power. By the ‘’protected corner’’ might mean hiding within the corners of the society and tradition which, by doing so, blocks men to think beyond the majesty. However, being guide namely, giving the true basis to the humanity is only done by possesing the truth, and if the truth given out to the society, the society will be enlightened. The truth for Emerson comes from the self-reliance, this is the idea what he tries to give out and so he emphasizes it at the last sentence very strongly.
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