Uriel
The title character of Emerson’s poem is based on the archangel of the same name from Milton’s Paradise Lost. In the transfer from Milton to Emerson, Uriel loses none of his allegorical substance, but it would be impossible for anyone reading the poem not familiar with the author’s biography to figure out from the language that he appears here as a character in what is essentially a poetic response to the criticism he Emerson received after delivering his 1838 Divinity School Address.
Daniel Webster
Noted orator, failed Presidential candidate, Congressman, Senator and ultimately most famous for being a fictionalized character who beats the Devil in a court of law, Daniel Webster is an example of why men with lofty ideals should be careful about compromising them.
According to Emerson in 1831 Daniel Webster was
“A beacon set that Freedom's race
Might gather omens from that radiant sign.”
By 1847, after Webster had betrayed his own conscience and the anti-slavery movement, however, Emerson would no longer even address Webster by name, instead obliquely referencing the New Hampshire native with the line:
“The God who made New Hampshire
Taunted the lofty land
With little men”
"Alphonso of Castile"
The title character of this poem is Alphonso X who ruled Castile during the 1200’s, but who interested in Emerson as a result of his intellectual pursuits, especially those having to do with astronomy which sought to pull the discipline away from its settled placement within astrology. He sought to fundamentally alter the rules of mathematics which consistently proved to confound theories being proposed by Ptolemaic astronomy.
Ellen
The so-called Ellen Poems comprise of a series of poems written to honor Emerson’s first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker. Ellen Emerson tragically died when she was just 19 years old.
"Bacchus"
The Roman god of wine and revelry which gives this poem its title is here transformed into a metaphorical figure which associates the pouring of wine and the pleasure it brings with the acting writing poetry.
