Emerson’s Scholar: A Transcendental Response for Sentient Resilience

Abstract

In this essay, I engage in an interpretive and critical analysis of Emerson’s The American Scholar (1837) essay wherein he states, “Our day of dependence, our longstanding apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close.” I assert that the educational philosophy Emerson posits in this essay on how to educate the new American intellectual of his time, which includes curricular engagement with nature, books, action, and the development of the human traits Emerson characterized as “man thinking,” continues to be relevant for informing contemporary forms of liberal learning curricula; indeed, some of these curricula can represent a Transcendentalist response to the decaying effects of neo-liberal economic interests, anti-intellectual impulses, and the neglect of the perennial idea of learning for its own sake. I contemporize and critique Emerson’s ideas explored in The American Scholar by including the work of two philosophers namely Murray Miles and Iris Murdoch; and, Emerson and Transcendentalism scholars including Barbara Packer and Robert D. Richardson Jr. and others provide contextual insights about The American Scholar address’s implications for achieving self-reliance and a more autonomous creative impulse initiated through the liberal arts tradition, with special attention to the essential literary works of humanity.