RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Reading Guide: “The American Scholar”
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
1. What is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s place in American literary history?
2. Note the circumstances of his speech “The American Scholar.” Where did he
deliver it? Who was his original audience? What was his purpose?
3. Note that the poet Oliver Wendal Holmes termed “The American Scholar”
America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence.”
4. What had been the state of American literature during the American Age of
Reason? What, therefore, is Emerson announcing in this speech?
5. As you read the essay, locate the major divisions of address.
6. The British essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote: “Emerson’s essays are a canvas bag
of buckshot—each sentence is carefully rounded and separate.” As you read,
mark the individual sentences in this essay speak to you. Be ready to share one or
two in class discussion.
7. Here is a list of some of the literary devices Emerson uses in his speech:
a. aphorisms
b. rhetorical questions
c. intentional fragment
d. balanced sentence
e. parallelism
f. quotations
g. allusions
h. metaphors
i. similes
j. dash
k. short, dramatic simple sentences
“The American Scholar” (1836/1837)
1. Note Emerson’s introduction. What is his thesis?
2. How does Emerson define the “American scholar”?
3. What are a scholar’s qualities? In the degenerate state what is an American
scholar?
4. What are the three main influences on the American scholar? Note how he orders
them from most important to least important.
5. What is the importance of studying nature?
6. What does Emerson mean with his reference to the influence of “the past” on the
scholar? What exactly comprises “the past”?
7. According to Emerson, what are the chief uses of books on the scholar?
8. What does Emerson mean by the influence of “action” on the scholar?
9. What are the duties of the scholar?
10. Note Emerson’s paragraph beginning “In self-trust . . . .” What does he urge
scholars to do in this paragraph?
11. Note Emerson’s conclusion. What is his final dramatic message to American
scholars?