ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author outlines the Emersonian hermeneutic and argues that the circle of faith posited by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his lectures and essays is analogous to the openness structured into the Jungian therapeutic situation. In both instances, images of power are embedded within interpretive contexts designed to assimilate their power. Implicit in Emerson's argument and essential to his method of presentation in "The American Scholar" is the recognition that the lessons of the unconscious can be assimilated through establishing interpretive relations to myth. Carl Gustav Jung's comments can be taken as a cogent analysis of Emerson's intellectual position, of the spiritual task perceived by Transcendentalism. In "The American Scholar," Emerson comments upon the interpretive perspective which is central to the assimilation of this instinct. "The American Scholar" resonates with such emblems of unconscious wholeness and activity. For Emerson's rhetorical strategy is to give his audience a sense of the energy waiting to be transformed into meaningful action.