...ruins. To the wise ... a fact is true poetry. Build . . . your own world. From The American Scholar. The scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man Thinking. The scholar of the first age received into him the world around. . . . It came into him life; it went...

...strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. In this distribution of functions the scholar is the...victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker. {Complete Works 1:82-84) Although Edward Waldo Emerson glossed the source of this passage as Aristophanes'...

...condition of society, the scholar was "Man Thinking," but in society's degenerate state the scholar became "a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking." The task, then, was to regenerate scholarly work as a fully human social activity. This began, Emerson...

...the future. For Emerson, the scholar had to become the seer for the rest of society, serving as its "delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man...still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking." In the Transcendentalist view, a child was less likely to be such a parrot, and as Twain later showed,...

...shall not perish from the earth' (1863). people's thoughts: cf. Emerson in 'The American Scholar': 'In the degenerate state, when the victim of society,...or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking' (CWRWE 1 53). not conform: Emerson, in SR: 'Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist' (29 and passim)....

...to fulfill his duties as "Man Thinking," instead of allowing himself to be reduced to the level of "a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking" (CW 1:62-63, 53). In a book produced by Man Thinking one encounters an authentic human being rather...

..."in the divided or social state" the various functions of humanity are "parceled out to individuals": In this distribution of functions, the scholar is...thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.54 Emerson identifies three primary influences on the mind. These are the world of nature,...

...acquirements, special skill have greatly tended to limit the range of men's thoughts and working faculties. " In this distribution of functions the scholar is the...worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. In this vie^ of him, as Man thinking, the theory of his office is contained. Him Nature solicits with all her...

...metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The scholar is, then, a part or function of the "One Man": In this distribution of functions the scholar is the...or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking. and action. The American scholar should not be primarily a booklearned man but a strong natural genius:...

...American Scholar," Emerson argues that creative expression potentially activates "Man-Thinking, "whereas "in the degenerate state, when the victim of society,...or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking" (54). By questioning the received wisdom of Old World dogma, Emerson's new American Scholar develops...