IE bard v. Emerson's poet

Emerson’s Prophet:
“The poet is the person . . . who sees and handles that which others dream of” (Emerson 224).
“The sign and credentials of the poet are that he announces that which no man foretold” (Emerson 225).
“The poet does not wait for the hero or the sage, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken” (Emerson 224).
“For poetry was all written before time was” (Emerson ?).
While Watkins focuses on how the bard praises what has happened, Emerson suggests that the poet writes of things that men dream about, things that no man has predicted, things that undoubtedly will happen. Emerson’s depiction of a poet has more mysticism to him/her than Watkins’ bard.

Higher Intelligence:
Emerson 230: “The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun, the poet is he who can articulate it.” “All men are intelligent of the symbols though which it is named; yet they cannot originally use them.” “The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives them a power which makes their old use forgotten.”
“It is he who is by definition competent in all areas where the word is, or is considered operative. This must be understood as a very concrete, practical notion.” (Watkins 69).
The poet and bard need training with words, though Watkins approaches the subject with a little more tact than Emerson does. I am not sure that I like how Emerson says the poet has ulterior intellectual perception.

Song of Praise:
“Our poets are men of talents who sing” (Emerson 225).
Both Watkins and Emerson talked about how the poet and card sings. Guess I can’t be a poet or bard, because honestly, I cannot sing!



A Level of Poetry in Everyone:
“Every man is so far a poet as to be susceptible of these enchantments of nature” (Emerson 228). It takes a level of poetry to praise the IE hero, but it also takes a level of poetry to enjoy and appreciate the praise and to recognize the thing to praise out in the real world.

Language of the Gods:
On page 229, Emerson attempts to talk about the “language of the Gods”.
“The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are all poets and mystics!” I liked this quote. Everyone has the potential to create something in the language of the Gods (Watkins) or the “superior use of things” (Emerson p. 229). They just need the training with the words in order to write as such.
Just as Becker talked about simplicity Emerson said on page 229, “We can come to use them [the significance of the few symbols we use] yet with a terrible simplicity. It does not need that a poem should be long.” We talked on Tuesday about Emerson’s attendance to one sentence. He says “every word was once a poem.” This makes me think of Australia’s aboriginal peoples. They had a song for every word of nature. One word was made into a poem.

Quotes to Discuss:
“Since every thing in nature answers to a moral power, if any phenomenon remains brute and dark it is because the corresponding faculty in the observer is not yet active.” 228 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“He is isolated among his contemporaries by truth and by his art.” 223 Knower, Doer, Sayer. “The poet is the sayer, the names, and represents beauty.” 224

“The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.” 223