The American Scholar & Other Essays

On August 31, 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a speech at the Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that later became known as The American Scholar. In it, Emerson presented a fresh perspective for America's young society to view the world, offering, possibly for the first time in the nation's history, a forward-looking philosophical framework to forge a new, distinctly American cultural identity. Emerson outlines his vision of a scholar who is not confined to the past, imitating...