Nature And Wilderness By John De Crevecoeur And Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson has a lot to teach about how to respect the earth because it is a mighty force but Nature also teaches what it means to be connected with nature and the feelings that are associated with connection. During my close read of Nature I faced challenges, successes, and a greater appreciation for the writing from a world that is drastically different from the one I live in. One of my biggest struggles while annotating the piece was looking at the big picture and what the paragraph as a whole was telling me. While I am annotating I tend to focus more on the smaller pieces such as the meaning of words and decoding what a sentence is saying. It’s hard to pull back from that and connect the bigger pieces to find what the

Emerson's message is one of non-conformity and individuality. He views every man as unique within, and feels society, exterior elements and tradition are man's downfall. He urges us to be a product of ourselves, to live in the

Emerson has issue with society. He believes that the conformity and “encroachment on peoples’ liberties [hindered the individual.] He says people should look for individual freedom, and in finding that freedom, people will achieve self-reliance” (Yanella 4, 13). More so Emerson does not trust the system that governs society. He sees society as a “joint stock company that is in conspiracy with every one of its members” (“Self-Reliance” 535). Society can be seen as a hindrance on individual thought because a lot of times people will do what society or authority tells them to do without thinking of themselves first.

In the beginning of creation of humans, nature has always been there as a friend. Nature is the phenomena of the physical world that includes plants, animals, the landscape, and other features that are on earth. Nature has all of the wild and domestic living things. Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American poet that led the transcendentalist movement and influenced other through his ideas and thinking. Ralph wrote “Nature,” and he describes his true feelings toward nature and God and how they have taken part of what has been created and also the relationship to humans. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes the passage “Nature” and he uses comparison between humans and nature and also uses figurative language to convey his appreciation and gratitude for nature.

I agree with his concern of people always looking to help those not local to them, and they do tend to not realize the help they can do locally as well. This concern easily applies to public health, where many seek to go overseas when they fail to realize how much help is needed locally or nationally. I also agree with how historically, people have changed their views on nature and the wilderness as this was often discussed in art history. However, I find that his view on the wilderness connotations are quite subjective. He viewed “wilderness” through human eyes as it is a culture we created and that we seek to conserve nature for selfish reasons to satisfy our romantic ideals: whether it be recreational sites, religious icons, spiritual healing, masculinity ideals, a place of paradise and escape, primitive ideals or for the

     Emerson’s writing focused on nonconformity and individuality. In his essay "Self-Reliance," he wrote, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind," and, "Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist."

Furthermore, he evokes the notion of the embodiment of nature and how few are able to see it; claiming the ones capable of perceiving such enlightenment are the ones who retain a benevolent innocent spirit—such as child—and who has retained the concept in times of adulthood—the poet. The mind of a child responds emotionally rather than sensorial. As a final remark in Emerson’s first chapter of nature, he states: in order for man to see nature plainly and receive the benefits one must push aside the old ways of thinking and egotism to become, as Emerson states, a transparent eyeball. ‘I am nothing, I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am a part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental” (______). This form of vision represents the primary benefit of Nature, a form of ultimate transcendency where there is a spiritual real of reason beyond material understanding. Humanistic delight in the landscapes, which is made up of many forms, provides an example of this integrated vision in which the universal entity transmits itself into one’s consciousness and makes one sense oneness with God. Nature, is thereby a metaphor of the mind in Emerson’s eyes.

	"I confess I am a little cynical on some topics, and when a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart, I have generally found the gravest and most useful citizens are not the easiest provoked to swell the noise, though they may be punctual at the polls." Here Emerson is saying that you should be suspicious when society tells you to be or act a certain way. Question why they are telling you to be or act this way. What is there hidden agenda?

Emerson criticizes that men do not even try to build their own opinion because they blindly trust the thoughts of the majority or they conform to the will of the community because their opinion differs from the common beliefs. They do not have enough courage and self-confidence to express their opinion since they are afraid that other men could look down at them because they do not have the same opinion. This turns them into just one, tiny, unimportant part of billions of people, whose thoughts are basically equal, but exactly the aspect of being different from everybody else, being an individual, being special and having his own personality is what a human being is all about and is necessary for having success.

Renowned poets and philosophers Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, although being from different schools of thought, actually shared many of the same views about nature and mankind’s role in society. Whitman, being more of a ‘romantic’ poet, praised nature’s beauty and majestic qualities. Thoreau, on the other hand, was more of a Transcendentalist; The Transcendentalism school of thought emphasized individualism as a common theme and celebrated the ‘self’ as a separate, but equal, counterpart to the nature of our environment. While both of these poets had their opinions on the landscape around us, they were quite similar in their beliefs about mankind’s existence and skirted the line between both schools of thought.

During the 1800’s, the period of the life of Walt Whitman, there were several notable writers who felt strong ties to the natural world and allowed their work to reflect this. These included Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson and John Muir and they were all players in the Transcendentalism movement that was coming to life. That theory – that people found their own version of spirituality, often through a connection to nature – is one that all of these great minds espoused in one way or another. But, perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson had the most influence over Walt Whitman. Their views of nature were closely matched and Emerson, already being an admired writer, was someone Whitman looked up to.

Nature and wilderness were very important ideas, to some extent, for St. John de Crevecoeur and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Each had their own opinions and ideas that contrasted against each other and were somewhat similar to each other; Emerson valued nature greatly, whether it be from looking at it as something to be proud of, to using nature as an example in his work, such as how we are a part of it and how random it can be. Crevecoeur believed that every land has its own form of culture as it does its own kind of nature. He describes how the land and nature was, and how it will be, by giving details of it in his pieces of work.

At the time of his writing, The American Scholar,” women were not allowed to achieve a higher education and scholarships were only awarded to men. This speech was originally a pamphlet but was converted into an essay later that year, publishing it in his book titled, Essays. As he discusses the American Scholar, he uses the term as a whole, like an entire entity, not a multifaceted group. Emerson instructs this entity on how the scholar should be educated, as nature should be their guide. He uses experts from Nature to touch on many topics for the scholar giving these two particular writings a general contrary notion. As depicted prior, Emerson derived most of his later writing and philosophy from his belief in nature. Men should be accountable for themselves and let nature be thy guide. Hence, you ask, why is Emerson so confusing? I do not believe that he is as confusing as one would think. I believe that his philosophy is quite to the point, erring on the side of

For centuries the question whether war is a product of Man 's nature or an outcome of nurture has been a source of intellectual debate. In the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries each of the political philosophers, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau took different stances regarding this issue in their deduction of "the state of nature"; a concept describing people 's lives before the existence of civilized societies and laws.

Emerson speaks of Americas ability to deviate from the norms set in Europe in one of his formal speeches given in 1837 on August 31st in Cambridge. It was simply titled “The American Scholar” (originally titled: An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, [Massachusetts,] August 31, 1837). He begins with speaking of how this gathering is distinctive and is nothing like the ones of the past in Europe. He believes it is time to begin anew as a new country of people. He believed that the society they were living in were only allowing them to imitate with the majority and not allow them to be “Man Thinking”. (Emerson, “The American Scholar”). The only way to reflect on such a high level is to throw