The American Scholar

In this lecture, Emerson outlines his ideal American scholar. This is a figure who is engaged in the natural and the physical world, not merely in the world of books. As Emerson states in the section of his lecture that is devoted to the importance of action in an intellectual’s life: “I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech” (Paragraph 25). By “lived,” Emerson is referring to life that takes place in the immediate world; the fuller and more populated this life is, he believes, the more it informs the intellect.

The ideal American scholar, for Emerson, is not overly intimidated by the past. While conversant in classic old works and writers, he does not assume his inferiority to these writers or assume that the world has already been shaped by their thought. Rather, he assumes his own potential ability to shape the world. Although engaged in the life of the world, he is also not swayed by customs and institutions. Emerson believes that the power of the individual is stronger than that of society, and his ideal scholar is anchored in his individualism rather than a part of “the mass” (Paragraph 34).