Emerson and the Aesthetic Philosophy of Language

Abstract

Argues Emerson developed his theory of language in response to the aesthetic tendencies strongly affecting eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophical thought in general and philosophy of language in particular. Like most linguistic thinkers from Vico to Humboldt, Emerson posited an aesthetic origin of language, attributing its birth to the imaginative endowments of the human mind and claiming all language was poetry. Believes Emerson shared the conviction of his contemporaries that language-origination was a creative process occurring in an evercontinuing present. Notes that Emerson stresses the imaginative, metaphoric, symbolic potential of all language, and recognizes that nature becomes the dialogic Other in the human spirit’s endless effort to realize itself through language. Claims Emerson was convinced that the only solution to the fundamental inadequacy and insufficiency of language was aesthetic: figurative language was a necessary compensation for the poverty of language. Concludes Emerson held that truth can be suggested through an endlessly creative symbolism inherent in a poetic use of language.