Poetic Portals: Emerson's Essay Epigraphs‪.‬

In a boldly unconventional structure, original verse epigraphs frequently preface Emerson's essays. Readers, however, most often ignore the epigraphs, and scholarship has given them virtually no extended consideration. I explore the generic and theoretical significance of these largely neglected threshold poems. By disregarding them, we both lose the pleasure of engaging the poetry and elide perspectives crucial to the prose that follows. The epigraphs resonate with the playful and arch rejoinder in "Self-Reliance," "I would write on the lintels of the doorpost, Whim.'" Similarly replacing scriptural text, the words of God, and the blood of the lamb, the epigraphs combine sacrality and joviality as whimsical yet profound pre-liminary conundrums. Attention to them is fundamental for our understanding relationships among Emerson's various texts and voices. In the epigraphs, I suggest, Emerson's poetry becomes the vital "Whim" upon the lintel of his prose. **********