Eloquence and Invisible Man

I thought that Eloquence and Invisible Man was an interesting article that made several, very interwoven connections. Upon the first mention of 'Emerson' I obviously thought of the famous literary genius, Ralph Waldo Emerson. But, the author continues on about 'Emersonians' and their style which leads me to believe that there is a whole school of study based just on R.W. Emerson's work which I was unaware of so I thought that could've used clarity especially since the Emersonian style of writing is extremely talked about in this article. Christopher Hanlon immediately makes a connection between authors and musicians saying that words are like an author's musical instrument and that writing is an art much like the creation of music. He uses a lot of musical adjectives when describing writers and writing in general such as "symphonic" or "harmonic". What I found extremely interesting is how Hanlon went into depth about audience interaction with an orator and how the orator uses the audience's energy to create a great speech. Hanlon then went on to connect this to Invisible Man and how the main character is an orator and how he comes to deliver great speeches, especially since his first one started off kind of badly. Hanlon says that in order for a speech to be successful it has to not only be written well, but be well received by the audience as well. He compares the novel to Emersonian styles of writing, "Ellison's novel formulates its own ethos of spoken self-creation along Emersonian lines." The entire article is based on the fact that Ellison wrote following the rules of Emersonian-style of writing and about the extended metaphor of musicians and authors.