Adam Zagajewski's Mysticism for Beginners and Emerson's The American Scholar

The poem "Mysticism for Beginners," by Adam Zagajewski, relates the epiphany of a speaker to a general unspecified audience. The speaker seems to be a person in Europe who is fairly well traveled, as he has been to Montepulciano and the Louvre. Upon seeing a book titled "Mysticism for Beginners" in a café, he reveals to the audience that he understands that many of the beautiful things he has seen are only mysticism for beginners. He is not speaking to any particular person, but instead is simply sharing his idea with whoever would like to read his poem. He is letting the audience into his own thoughts, describing to them the things that he has seen. It cannot be a poem simply for himself because he spends too much time setting the scene at the beginning and not enough time writing on what he actually discovers from this epiphany. He wants the general audience to see the setting and know his first thoughts, but then interpret them as they desire. The setup of the poem is essential for communicating Zagajewski's ideas about transcendentalism.