Critical Analysis and Line by line Explanation of The Nation Builders by -Ralph Waldo Emerson| UP Board CLASS 10 ENGLISH

About the poet

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882)was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 25, 1803, a son of Ruth Haskins and the Rev. William Emerson, a Unitarian minister. Emerson’s formal schooling began at the Boston Latin School in 1812, when he was nine. In October 1817, at age 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president.

After Harvard, Emerson assisted his brother William in a school for young women established in their mother’s house, after he had established his own school in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Emerson toured Europe in 1833 and later wrote of his travels in English Traits (1856). He left aboard the brig Jasper on Christmas Day, 1832, sailing first to Malta. Moving north to England, Emerson met William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle.

On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of Nature, Emerson met with Frederic Henry Hedge, George Putnam, and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals. This was the beginning of the Transcendental Club. Emerson anonymously published his first essay, “Nature“, on September 9, 1836. A year later, on August 31, 1837, he delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, “The American Scholar“, then entitled “An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge”.

In 1841 Emerson published Essays, his second book, which included the famous essay “Self-Reliance“. In January 1842 Emerson’s first son, Waldo, died of scarlet fever. Emerson wrote of his grief in the poem “Threnody“. Emerson made a living as a popular lecturer in New England and much of the rest of the country. He had begun lecturing in 1833. He addressed the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and the Gloucester Lyceum, among others. Emerson spoke on a wide variety of subjects, and many of his essays grew out of his lectures.

Emerson was staunchly opposed to slavery, but he did not appreciate being in the public limelight and was hesitant about lecturing on the subject. Around this time, in 1860, Emerson published The Conduct of Life, his seventh collection of essays. It “grappled with some of the thorniest issues of the moment,” and “his experience in the abolition ranks is a telling influence in his conclusions. Emerson’s protégé Henry David Thoreau died of tuberculosis at the age of 44. Emerson delivered his eulogy.

About the poem

The Nation Builders is a poem written by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the poem shows these are the only people who make the nation strong and take their progress to the skies. Thus, the nation’s strength is great men and they are what make a nation great and strong.

The Poem ‘The Nation Builders’ tells us that gold, material wealth does not make a nation strong and great. The strong people build a nation. People who are ready to make sacrifices for the truth and honor, who are ready to stand firm and suffer, lay the solid foundation of a nation. The industries and daring people make a nation great, and not the weak and cowards.

Structure of the Poem

The poem

Not gold, but only men can make
     A people great and strong _____
Men who, for truth and honor's sake,
       Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
      Who dare while others fly____
They builds a nation's pillars deep
     And lift them to the sky ,

The poem consists of 2 stanzas each with 4 lines. The rhyme scheme followed by the entire poem is ABAB. End rhyme is used to make the stanza melodious. The rhyming words are “make”, “sake”, “strong” and “long.”

Line By Line Analysis Of The Poem

Not gold, but only men can make
     A people great and strong _____
Men who, for truth and honour's sake,
       Stand fast and suffer long.

According to the poet, Gold cannot make a nation great as it has no life, it’s just a material. Strong men are required to make nation great, men who can fight for sake of honour and truth. The men who sacrifice for the truth and honour, who are ready to stand firm and suffer.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
      Who dare while others fly____
They builds a nation's pillars deep
     And lift them to the sky ,

The poet means that there are brave and courageous men who work hard, while the others pass their time in idleness. The brave ones are the nation builders of the nation pillars, they make the nation great and raise the nation to a great height.

Literary Devices Used

•Personification:–the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

Not gold, but only men

•Alliteration:–the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly

•Metaphor:– a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

Brave men who work while others sleep,

Who dare while others fly

•Allusions:- an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly

A people great and strong
They build a nation’s pillars deep

•Climax:- the most intense, exciting, or important point of something; the culmination.

They build a nation’s pillars deep

And lift them to the sky,

•Refrain:-

•Enjambment:- the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.

Men who, for truth and honor’s sake,

Stand fast and suffer long

Theme of the poem

The Poem ‘The Nation Builders’ represents the brave and courageous men who make a nation strong and great. The people of strong character build a nation. The industries and daring people make a nation great, and not the weak and lazy ones.

The poet says not wealth but only men can build a nation. All men should be brave, courageous to build a strong pillar of nation and raise the nation to a great height.