Essay Questions

What literary device does Emerson use in the opening stanza of “Concord Hymn” to situate the significance of the battlefield monument which it commemorates?

“Concord Hymn” was composed by Emerson specifically for the July 4, 1837 unveiling of the Minuteman statue on the battlefield where the American Revolution began. The verse does not glorify the actual fighting, but rather stands a testament to the land itself which is in its contemporary verdant state masks the blood shed there which revolutionized the entire world and changed the course of history. That the significance of one wartime engagement near an obscure town actually was global is manifested in the famous closing line of the opening stanza in which Emerson turns to the poetic device of metonymy to transform the very first musket ball fired into a symbol of every bullet fired throughout the rest of the Revolutionary War:

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world”

“Blight” opens with a request for active vital truths from a speaker who grown weary of superficiality. What is unique about the section which immediately follows and the concluding section?

The opening directive comprises two-and-a-half lines consisting of fourteen words. The next fourteen-and-a-half lines is a 100-word long single sentence reply. That reply is certainly not superficial in its acquisition of knowledge about herbs and juices that includes—among many others—pimpernel, sassafras and milkweed. This long section is a demonstration of scientific acquisition of knowledge of wood and root herbs that carries with it the implication for application in the field of chemistry the advanced skills to combine them for the sake of attraction of lovers and repulsion of fiendish enemies.

“The Humble Bee” is a poem designed to teach readers a Transcendentalist life lesson from nature. What is the lesson Emerson hopes to convey?

The poem was written in the wake of the Panic of 1837 in which the economic bubble produced by the short-sighted economic policies of unfettered investment fostered during the Andrew Jackson administration ultimately burst, sending thousands—including Emerson himself—into the dark uncharted waters of financial anxiety. Emerson turned once again to the natural order of wildlife to find symbolism of transcendent meaning for humans with which to deal with the vagaries of chance and randomness in the universe. In going about their business with industrious attention to the concerns of the moment, bees become the metaphor of choice for keeping attention focused on what is “fair” and “sweet” as a means to mock the cruelty of fate. By poem’s end, the speaker has reached a conclusion about what it takes to sleep through the nights which are sour as well as the nights which are sweet:

“Want and woe which torture us,

Thy sleep makes ridiculous.”