| The American Scholar |
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| transcendentalism | |
| american scholar | |
| ralph waldo emerson | |
For the publication of Phi Beta Kappa, see The American Scholar (magazine) The American Scholar was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1837 to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Cambridge , Massachusetts . He was invited to speak as a result of his ground breaking work '' Nature '', published a year earlier in which he established a new way for America's historically-young society to look at the world. The American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe 60 years after declaring independence, and Emerson was, for the first time in the country's history, providing a roadmap on how to escape from underneath that veil and build a new, American identity. SUMMARY Emerson uses Transcendentalist and Romantic views to get his points across by explaining a true American scholar's relationship to nature. There are a few key points he makes that flesh out this vision:
IMPORTANCE Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. declared this speech to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence." Building on the growing attention he was receiving from the essay '' Nature '', this speech solidified Emerson's popularity and weight in America, a level of reverence he would hold through out the rest of his life. Phi Beta Kappa's Literary Quarterly was named after the speech. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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