Representative Men · Character

William Shakespeare

The poet whose genius was so large that Emerson can only call him a Platonist in disguise — a writer who fed the world's imagination without ever breaking himself on an institution.

major

Also known as Shakespeare, V Shakespeare

First appearance: V: Shakespeare; or, the Poet

See William Shakespeare in V: Shakespeare; or, the Poet Book page

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Emerson places Shakespeare among the poets who console men for the meannesses of labor and traffic, feeding thought and imagination from an intellectual kingdom. He is a Platonist when he writes that nature is made better by no mean but nature makes that mean, and Hamlet is a pure Platonist — yet the sheer magnitude of Shakespeare's proper genius keeps him from being classed as merely the most eminent of that school. He matters because he shows the poet type at its most contemplative and least institutional: a mind that soars where Plato only theorized.

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Philosophers and Poets
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William Shakespeare appears across 4 companion beats. Open any chapter in the free preview to see the notes beside the text.

Plato: New Readings
Cited as a Platonist, with a quote from his works illustrating the idea that nature is made better by no mean but nature makes that mean.
Swedenborg; or, the Mystic
Mentioned as a refuge from the saints and as a counterpart to Swedenborg, representing the intellectual and poetic realm.
IV: Montaigne; or, the Skeptic
Mentioned as having owned a copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne, the only book certainly known to have been in Shakespeare's library.
V: Shakespeare; or, the Poet
Presented as the representative poet, unmatched in wisdom and creative power, yet criticized for using his genius for public amusement rather than spiritual exploration.

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See William Shakespeare in V: Shakespeare; or, the Poet