Richard Poirier and Stanley Cavell: two inspired guides into deepest Emerson

“Emerson says now and then that language might lead us back to human origins, that ‘language,’ as he says in ‘The Poet,’ is ‘fossil poetry.’ This implies that there are discoverable traces in language of that aboriginal power by which we invent ourselves as a unique form of nature. Frost in an Emersonian mood ends the poem ‘All Revelation’ with a tribute to this human inventiveness:

‘Eyes seeking the response of eyes

Bring out the stars, bring out the flowers,

Thus concentrating earth and skies

So none need be afraid of size.

All revelation has been ours. ‘”