Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Snow-Storm”: Aware of the Self, We Devoid Ourselves of Art
Ancient Greek philosophers were intrigued by the difference between a thing’s essence and appearance. In his dialogue Phaedo, Plato posits “that there are two sorts of existences, one seen, and the other unseen…The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging…The soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen.” Similar to how a knife derives its identity from its essential blade, all of us possess a set of immutable and essential properties that make us who we are. However, in the case of the knife, the soul and body are the same. The knife cannot hide that its blade exists to cut. But for us Plato’s ancient words hold true. As will become clear, our essential properties are never fully realized or seen, and painfully so.
Two millennia onward, Ralph Waldo Emerson explores the curious connections between essence and consciousness in his poem “The Snow-Storm.” He illustrates nature’s lack of consciousness as what begets its fully realized Art and “seen” essence. To do this Emerson personifies a snowstorm, which, ironically enough, effectively endows nature with consciousness and intentionality. Here, the snowstorm’s personification is not meant to seriously suggest that the snowstorm is in fact conscious, but that human imposition of personification is a reflection of our anthropocentric infatuation with consciousness. We are obsessed with consciousness because we have no other way to reconcile nature’s beauty with its lack of intention without admitting that our status as conscious beings does not imply a status as superior beings.
Therefore, as the speaker in this poem grows frustrated with the snowstorm’s extraordinary yet unintentional beauty, they begin to personify it as impudent and wild. The snowstorm’s ostensible fury provides the speaker with a convenient explanation for its expediency in creating Art. No longer is nature the primary purveyor of beauty whose “frolic architecture” is built easily in one night without a single thought, but a brute who brushes in frenzied strokes. The seeming primitiveness of the snowstorm assures the speaker of their own intellect and, thus, superiority. The speaker’s discontent and personification of the snowstorm’s savagery become increasingly apparent as the poem progresses. Emerson employs diction, imagery, and enjambment to this end.
The first nine lines of the poem personify the snowstorm as omnipotent, lacking any rage. The snowstorm’s arrival is described in regal terms, being “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky.” “The whited air” also “Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven.” Here, the snow’s ubiquity suggests that nature is superior to all, even to heaven and religion. Nature’s dominating presence is further underscored by its ability to stop “the sled and traveler” and delay “the courier’s feet,” consigning them to the “tumultuous privacy of storm.”
Furthermore, the enjambment present in these lines is infrequent. “The whited air / Hides hills and woods” while “The courier’s feet / Delayed,” and the “housemates sit / Around the radiant fireplace.” The sparse enjambment also reflects the subdued imagery within these lines. The snowstorm simply hides the hills, delays the courier’s feet, and prompts the housemates to sit by their fireplace. However, the speaker’s description of the snowstorm as “tumultuous” in the last line of this stanza betrays their first signs of derision towards the snowstorm.
After this last line in the first stanza, the snowstorm is increasingly personified in aggressive terms. The speaker beckons us to “Come see the north wind’s masonry.” Masonry is a slow and painstaking human task. But the masonry of the wind is rapid in comparison, and more importantly, no less beautiful for its rapidity. The speaker’s resulting insecurity about their inability to produce art as beautiful as an unconscious snowstorm’s, and over the course of a single night no less, is why they describe the snowstorm not as an artist, but as a “fierce artificer.” As soon as the snowstorm is endowed with consciousness and intentionality, it is also outfitted with a personality that can be ridiculed.
The snowstorm is further described as “speeding” and “myriad-handed,” and its work as “wild.” Connotations of “wild” include notions of incivility, aggression, unintelligence, and, ultimately, inferiority. A “wild” snowstorm that is also characterized as “speeding,” and “myriad-handed,” adds to the belief of the snowstorm’s brutish physicality. This snowstorm is not an inspired artist but an unstable beast. The diction packed into this one line strongly suggests of the speaker’s growing need to make themselves superior to the snowstorm.
Emerson begins to develop the snowstorm’s petulance in the next four lines. It “mockingly” “hangs Parian wreaths” and conceals “A swan like form” in a “hidden thorn.” We are supposedly worthy of the snowstorm’s attention and mockery. Perhaps because the snowstorm regards humans as a threat to its artistic pre-eminence, or because it arrogantly enjoys flaunting such pre-eminence. But either way, once we remind ourselves that the snowstorm is not conscious, we must concede that any insecurity we feel coming from the snowstorm is in fact our own. Lurking behind our insecurity is the pain of refusing to acknowledge that our consciousness does not ennoble us. On the contrary, it may be our undoing. The speaker goes on to describe how the snowstorm does not care “for number or proportion.” The exactitude of such things connotes intelligence and civility, which the snowstorm apparently lacks. But we must, again, remind ourselves that we impress such notions onto the snowstorm.
Additionally, the enjambment within this part of the poem has picked up the pace, becoming more frequent and containing imagery that speaks to the wind’s velocity, adding to our perception of the snowstorm’s angry instability. The snowstorm quickly “Curves his white bastions with projected roof / Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.” Displeased, the speaker notes that the snowstorm’s “wild work” is “So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he / For number or proportion. Mockingly / On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths.” This six line block moves the quickest of any section in the poem. The snowstorm’s intense pace crescendos and becomes more apparent the quicker we jump from line to line, waiting for a clear and satisfying full stop.
The last six lines of the poem most clearly betray the origin of our confused jealousy towards the snowstorm. When the snowstorm retires for the night it leaves “as he were not.” Here, Emerson uses the pronoun “he,” but also notes that “he were not.” Coming towards the end of the poem, the snowstorm loses its “he” status, its personality. We realize that we imagined into being a snowstorm with personality, which had allowed us to attribute to the snowstorm characterizations such as “mad,” and “savage.” But because it is wrong to refer to the snowstorm as “he,” as a self, it is also wrong to accord it character. Once this becomes clear, it also becomes clear that we are the jealous ones, having been projecting onto the snowstorm our insecurity in not being able to replicate its “astonished Art.” Here, the capitalization of “Art” indicates that the snowstorm creates true Art. Nothing is feigned or counterfeit. The snowstorm, and by extension nature, is the embodiment of Art in its purest form. We can only hope to “mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,” the snowstorm’s “frolic architecture.”
It can be said that Emerson re-affirms the old adage “Ignorance is bliss” in this poem, but in a radically new light. If bliss follows from a lack of knowledge and understanding, imagine what kind of bliss follows from the absolute absence of knowledge and understanding. It may be, in fact, that consciousness is a curse. It holds us back from ever bearing our truest selves to the world. For our existence only becomes existentially dreadful when we possess the capacity to question it. The snowstorm’s lack of consciousness allows it to forgo ontological misgivings and restlessness, delivering perfect Art. We rage against the snowstorm’s Art because we are incapable of the same. We instead engage in the self-sabotage of self-awareness. Our art is never necessarily made for Art’s sake. It is made merely to impress, gratify, or rave at close of day. But the snowstorm’s beauty is not self-conscious — thus, we know for certain that its Art is created for the sake of its own existence. It cannot do, or be, otherwise.
