Poetry, Philosophy And The Philosophy Of The Poetic

As a famous American writer, lecturer and thinker in the nineteenthcentury, Ralph Waldo Emerson made incomparable influence on the Americanliterature and ideological system, which is the reason why so manyscholars focus on him for years. My study, with a perspective differentfrom that of those studies, turns to Emerson' s poetry that are alwaysless well-known and emphasizes on a main point distilled from hiscomplicated ideas, which is concluded as the integrated thought on poetryand philosophy. That means Emerson intended to combine poetry withphilosophy, to make his poetry philosophical and philosophy poetic. Insuch a kind of philosophical poetry and poetic philosophy, Emersondeveloped his own special characteristic and expressed his ideas morepowerfully, which also explains why he achieved such a high place. Thestudy makes a full analysis on Emerson' s poetry first. Then the studymoves further to explore some related questions on the idea of theintegration of poetry and philosophy, including how it was shaped, howit was showed in Emerson' s works, how it got resource from the historyand foreign culture, how it influenced the later poets such as Whitmanand Dickinson. The study confirms the special value of Emerson' s poetryand tries to evaluate Emerson' s role as a poet. Meanwhile, the studyconnects Emerson' s poetry and philosophy in order to give a full viewof Emerson, which is believed to start a new field for studies on Emerson.