The American Scholar

The title of Emerson’s lecture, “The American Scholar,” announces his aim to define a new, American type of intellectual. There are several characteristics of his ideal scholar that we can recognize as distinctly American. To begin with, Emerson explicitly declares his wish to break away from a European model of intellectualism. As he states near the end of his lecture: “We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe” (Paragraph 43). Here and elsewhere in the lecture, he rejects an old and static model of intellectualism in favor of a new and forward-thinking one. He cautions against an overly dutiful and intimidated attitude towards ancient classic works of scholarship. He also urges the American scholar to think of himself as the potential author of classics rather than to sequester himself away from the world studying dead writers: “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books” (Paragraph 13).

Emerson’s model of the ideal American scholar is also an implicitly democratic one. In government as well as in literature, he rejects the idea that there are only a few born leaders—“great m[e]n”—whom everyone else must follow: “In a century, in a millennium, one or two men; that is to say, one or two approximations to the right state of every man.