Can anyone help with this enquiry? I admit I'm not even confident that
Kipling wrote the poem attributed to him.
Mary Hamer
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Edward Greitzer <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: September, 13, 2009 19:02:01 BST
> To: mary hamer <[log in to unmask]>, Cumpsty Cumpsty
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: Helen Greitzer <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Kipling and Emerson?
>
> TO: Kipling Scholars
>
> Once you extract one Kipling item from the web an insidious process
> takes over, resulting in the present query. I attach two poems.
> One is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. One thing (among the many) that
> Emerson is known for is an address delivered at Harvard*, "The
> American Scholar", which was hailed as the American "intellectual
> Declaration of Independence". (This may or may not be relevant.) The
> second is a poem by Kipling entitled "An American".
>
> Do you know the story behind, and context of, the Kipling poem?
>
> Ed
>
>
>
> *Another note on Emerson. In 1838, Emerson was invited to Divinity
> Hall at Harvard for the graduation address. I quote Wikapedia on the
> results:
>
> "Emerson discounted Biblical miracles and proclaimed that, while Jesus
> was a great man, he was not God: historical Christianity, he said, had
> turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would
> describe Osiris or Apollo".[47] His comments outraged the
> establishment and the general Protestant community. For this, he was
> denounced as an atheist,[47] and a poisoner of young men's minds.
> Despite the roar of critics, he made no reply, leaving others to put
> forward a defense. He was not invited back to speak at Harvard for
> another thirty years."
>
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