The Rhodora

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Recommended: Roles of nature in literature

Emerson’s “The Rhodora” is about a purple flower in the rhododendron family. Unlike its sister plant, Rhododendron ponticum, the Rhodora grows near bogs or unfertile and acidic soil. The Rhodora has no leaves and its blooms sprout directly from the stem. The Rhodora grows in solitude, away from other flowers that are considered to be immensely beautiful. “The Rhodora” contemplates the beauty of a simple flower and its effect on its surroundings. In the poem, Emerson’s speaker discovers that nature is beautiful and needs no excuse for being. This is accomplished by the uses of imagery, personification and apostrophe, and metaphor.

The speaker begins by using descriptive diction to illustrate the Rhodora and its effect on its surroundings. The Rhodora is seen not only as a flower, but as a focal point on the entire scene. The Rhodora is described s fresh in line 2. In lines 3 and 4, the speaker is awestruck at the Rhodora’s solitude. It spreads its leafless blooms in a damp nook, or lonely crevice of the woods. The Rhodora pleases the desert, which is a metaphor of a pla...

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