In general writers are artistic individuals who inspire original thought through their work. Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "The Poet" is a prime example of an author trying to stimulate his audience's personal beliefs. In "The Poet", Emerson wants his audience to be able to create distinctly American intellectual cultural ideas instead of following past European models. From Emerson's perspective poets can see the true meaning of nature relating to life, but his message to the audience is that Americans can learn to see things through the eyes of a poet and become poets themselves.
             In the opening epigraph of "The Poet", Emerson outlines the qualities of a poet to be visionaries and interpreters of nature. Emerson also describes that poets have been gifted with special privileges giving poets the ability to see and decipher the hidden meaning of nature.
             The second epigraph in this essay is a piece from another one of Emerson's works called "Ode to Beauty". In this section Emerson is trying to explain that poetry has a lasting effect on every individual in society, "Which always find us young, And always keep us so." (Emerson 972). Emerson wants his American readers to establish their own individual literary talents rather than continuing past European trends.
             In the introductory paragraph, Emerson explains that people who are "umpires of taste"(Emerson 972) are only competent enough of judging literature and poetry because they have studied famous works of art, not because it is their occupational niche. Emerson explains that these "umpires of taste" know what the difference is between good and bad pieces of art, but they should spend time judging themselves before anything else, because they are "selfish and sensual"(Emerson 972). Emerson believes that individuals who are to judge literature and poetry sh
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