I'm pasting below an excerpt from one of Emerson's essays in which he concludes (in this part of the excerpt) that our language is greater than our individuals. His is an argument that is contrary to that of the deconstructionists; he finds a pure form realized in the language of a nation. Anyway, reading it made me think of the readings on deconstruction, and I thought you all might enjoy reading a different point of view--and certainly debatable in particulars (but that's because Emerson is clear in his arguments positionally):
"There is a genius of a nation, which is not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which characterizes the society. England, strong, punctual, practical, well-spoken England, I should not find, if I should go to the island to seek it. In the parliament, in the playhouse, at dinner-tables, I might see a great number of rich, ignorant, book-read, conventional, proud men, --many old women, -- and not anywhere the Englishman who made the good speeches, combined the accurate engines, and did the bold and nervous deeds. It is even worse in America, where, from the intellectual quickness of the race, the genius of the country is more splendid in its promise, and more slight in its performance. Webster cannot do the work of Webster. We conceive distinctly enough the
French, the Spanish, the German genius, and it is not the less real, that perhaps we should not meet in
either of those nations, a single individual who corresponded with the type.
We infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which is a sort of monument, to which each forcible individual in a course of many hundred years has contributed a stone. And, universally, a good
example of this social force, is the veracity of language, which cannot be debauched. In any
controversy concerning morals, an appeal may be made with safety to the sentiments, which the
language of the people expresses. Proverbs, words, and grammar inflections convey the public sense
with more purity and precision, than the wisest individual." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Book regards,
Where's Waldo?
