How Daring Is the Reading: Emerson’s Aesthetic Reading

With the Common Core State Standards now adopted in an overwhelming number of U.S. states, the authors argue that American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson offers a complementary approach to the teaching of literature, one that focuses on and fosters aesthetic reading experiences. Emerson’s aesthetic reading speaks to a purposeful playfulness that encourages readers to allow their imaginations full sway and to play with interpretation; it also views reading experiences as events that take into consideration the experiences made possible when actively paying attention to the moments, oneself, and one’s relationships and surroundings when reading; finally, it values the performance of reading, of living through the experience of reading that nurtures creativity, risk taking, and an enlivening of the imaginative spirit. These three interrelated and complementary concepts situate Emerson as an apostle for aesthetic reading experiences and provide a much needed supplement to the Common Core State Standards that delimit reading in schools, especially the reading of literature, to a narrow set of possible readings with standards-based outcomes.