High Voltage Poetry

Derived from Emerson’s signature transcendentalist vision of nature, “The Rhodora” serves as a pristine example of the emblem structure which Michael Theune describes in Structure & Surprise as “[a] two-part structure, [that] begins with an organized description of an object and culminates with a meditation on that same object.” Indeed, Emerson’s poem begins with more descriptive language—the narrator’s discovery of an immaculate shrub depicted through “leafless blooms” and “purple petals”—and concludes, following the pivotal exclamation of “Rhodora!,” with an insightful address to the anthropomorphized plant itself. This emblem structure, which Thuene says, “moves from sight to insight, from perception to reflection,” is heightened by the fact that the poem functions, essentially, as a 16-line sonnet. As with a number of Shakespearean sonnets, “The Rhodora” includes an additional twist in its final couplet, and, from “reflection” on the rhodora’s beautiful state of being, culminates in theological consideration of a common Maker uniting flora and fauna: “The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.”