The American Scholar

Emerson often uses metaphors in his writing, as a means of making the abstract concrete. He is writing about how a scholar should regard the world and comport themselves in the world, which is an inherently abstract subject. Moreover, one of the points that he is making is that a scholar should be engaged in the immediate world around him, as a means of nourishing his intellect. His use of tactile figurative language helps to emphasize this point.

Emerson’s topic could be perceived as a fancy one, but his metaphors are never fancy. They are blunt, earthy and often irreverent, and they serve to underscore his point that an intellectual should not isolate themselves from the world or (even while being serious about their work) take themselves too seriously. Discussing what he sees as the modern tendency towards over-specialization, and its warping effect on the spirit, he uses a metaphor that is both violent and comical: “The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man” (Paragraph 4).