Hello! I need your help.

[alikarabulut]

Hello friends,

This is my first post to this forum, so I'd better inroduce myself first. Shortly, I am Ali from Turkey, a quadriplegic suffering from spinal cord injury; you might read about me here: http://alikarabulut.googlepages.com/

I have a question on a few lines of an Emetrson poem. You can read it here: http://www.aboutemerson.com/poems/problem.htm

I would be very much appreciated if you compare these two parts and give me the meanings. Please comparatively...

Thank you...

...
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowled churchman be.

and

...
And yet for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

My warmest regards,

[mono]

Hello, alikarabulut, welcome to the forum. :)
Firstly, I apologize to hear of your injury. As a recently graduating RN, I have cared for patients with spinal cord injuries (resulting in paraplegia, hemiplegia, or quadriplegia), and cannot but admire their strength, determination, and will. I hope the best for you.
No doubt, you would probably receive more replies in the 'Poems, Poetry, and Poets' part of the forum, but I can try help according to my abilities. Emerson, though one of my favorite poets and thinkers, cannot always seem easy to understand.
I think I will just post the whole poem, entitled 'The Problem,' and will merely begin from there. I have always admired this poem, but have had some difficulty with it . . . well, merely because Emerson wrote it.

The Problem

I like a church, I like a cowl,
I love a prophet of the soul,

And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see,
Would I that cowled churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle;
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,
The canticles of love and woe.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity,
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew,
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves and feathers from her breast;
Or how the fish outbuilt its shell,
Painting with morn each annual cell;
Or how the sacred pine tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone;
And Morning opes with haste her lids
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky
As on its friends with kindred eye;
For out of Thought's interior sphere
These wonders rose to upper air,
And nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass,
Art might obey but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o'er him planned,
And the same power that reared the shrine,
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Even the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the Countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting quires,
And through the priest the mind inspires.

The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.

I know what say the Fathers wise,
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden-lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines,
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear,
And yet for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowled churchman be.
First of all, to answer your specific questions and cited lines, the reference to 'his' refers to the proclaimed 'prophet of the soul.' As with most poetry and essays by Emerson, this allusion delves strongly into his philosophy of transcendentalism; if you have the time, I definitely recommend looking into it, but I warn that his essays often involve some difficulty reading.
Anyway, the faith of what the 'prophet of the soul' sees, Emerson basically indirectly alludes to as transcendental and beyond full human comprehension, hence the stating of why he would never 'that cowled churchman be.' During part of his lifetime, Emerson worked as a Unitarian preacher, and, for multiple reasons, resigned, partially due to a death in his immediate family, but also involving his philosophy of transcendentalism; these two lines share a common theme: Emerson chooses not to represent, attempt to explain, nor try to fully comprehend the complete faith in the 'prophet of the soul.'

And yet for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.
My explanation nearly fully explains my interpretation of these two lines, too. Again, 'his' referring to 'the prophet of the soul,' only phrased differently, Emerson, especially alluding to his philosophy of transcendentalism, thinks himself unfit to represent, explain, or attempt to understand the complexity of faith in 'the prophet of the soul,' remaining beyond human words.

I hope I have helped, and would love to aide you if you have more questions, or a different interpretation. Take care. ;)

[Whifflingpin]

"I know what say the Fathers wise,
The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden-lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakspeare of divines,
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear,
And yet for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be."

I know what the wise Fathers (early Christian teachers) say, I have their writings before me;
St John Chrysostom and St Augustine of Hippo, and Jeremy Taylor who blended both their teachings in his. Jeremy Taylor is like a younger Chrysostom (Golden Lips in Greek) and as great a divine (a teacher of divinity) as Shakespeare is the greatest of playwrights.
Taylor's words are music to my ear, I like to look on his cowled portrait (poetic licence, since Taylor was a mid 17th century Church of England theologian and Bishop, and would not have worn a cowl)
Yet I would not wish to be Bishop Taylor for any price, not even to enter the Heaven that he believed in.

.

[alikarabulut]

Dear Mono and Whifflingpin,

Thank you very much for your time and replies. It really helped to make me understand the poem.



...Emerson, especially alluding to his philosophy of transcendentalism, thinks himself unfit to represent, explain, or attempt to understand the complexity of faith in 'the prophet of the soul,' remaining beyond human words.


Mono, you said Emerson thinks himself 'unfit to represent' but in these lines, although he thinks himself unfit, deep inside him he would want to be like the chuchman. Is that right?

Will you please explain these lines literally? Would he want to be 'that cowled churchman'? Or would he not?

...
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowled churchman be.

and

...
And yet for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

My warmest regards,

It'd be nice if I get other friends' comments.

[mono]

Mono, you said Emerson thinks himself 'unfit to represent' but in these lines, although he thinks himself unfit, deep inside him he would want to be like the chuchman. Is that right?
Entirely correct, yes. He greatly desires to represent such faith, but feels he cannot due to his ideas on transcendentalism - he feels a number of things seem impossible, or nearly impossible, to understand and comprehend, hence he thinks himself reluctant and inadequate to represent and preach such ideas.

Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowled churchman be.
I believe I partially answered this in my previous post, but I can easily rephrase my thoughts, if you like. The word 'his' in the first line of the quote refers to the 'prophet of the soul' from a preceding line in the poem. What Emerson calls the 'prophet of the soul,' he believes, has the greatest ability to perceive everything objectively and truly. Where the fault lies remains in human comprehension; human thought, to Emerson, cannot understand, explain, nor imagine the faith that rests in the 'prophet of the soul.' Emerson admitting himself as a human, he henceforth feels that he cannot represent the faith he strongly admires.

And yet for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.
These lines follow the precise same meaning as the quote above, only Emerson changed the words used.

[alikarabulut]

Thank you very much indeed, Mono.