# William Shakespeare — Representative Men character guide

> William Shakespeare in Representative Men by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Shakespeare, V Shakespeare

**First appearance:** 0005-v-shakespeare-or-the-poet

## Snapshot

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.

## Who they are

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.

## In the story

### [Plato: New Readings](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/iii-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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/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](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/chapters/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.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/characters/shakespeare
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/representative_men_se/characters