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Question:

Can anyone explain the poem "Each and All" by Ralph Waldo Emerson?

I have search the internet for a summary and I can not find anything. I will be very greatful to anyone who can help me!


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Firstly, may I suggest you re-read it stanza by stanza and try to feel what Emerson is feeling.

The heifer that lows has no conscious knowledge that it is heard by you specifically - nor the bird that sings. You are their unconscious audience.

The world's beauty is there regardless of whether you view it or do not. You are not at the centre ... you are a merged part.

What Emerson is basically saying is that snatched moments of sights, sounds, emotions, etc., are there and then gone ... but that in their place, at that time, they were magical.

The shells were enchanting as they lay in the sand on the beach, but washed and brought home they had somehow left their magic on the beach. In the way that a caged bird never sings as sweetly as when free. Beauty is truth, but can also be an illusion.

Emerson is saying that the viewer/listener is not the centre of the universe, but part of the whole ... that all plant and life forms have an equal place and we all intertwine with each other within the world. Acceptance of this fact brings joy and happiness.
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