This essay considers how philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and poet Emily Dickinson, each reveal important revelations
on the values of
solitude. Emerson sees the person in
isolation as a person who is nearer to his own soul, and so nearer to God; Dickinson reveals her isolation as a site for inspiration with the natural realities of life and death. While Emerson states clearly his ideas of the value of solitude for reflection, Dickinson poetically portrays her life of isolation in verse that reveals her inspirations of divinity.