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Essay on Emerson's Nature and Transcendentalism
How does "Nature" illustrate the ideals of transcendentalism and where are they made evident in both the short poem at the beginning of Nature and later in the text? Discuss and provide specific examples to support your discussion.
The word "transcendental" (Emerson, 1991) had long been used in philosophy to describe truths that were beyond the reach of man's limited senses; and as a transcendentalist, Emerson argued for intuition as a guide to universal truths that could not be reached by reason alone. He believed that God is all-loving and all-pervading, that His presence in men and women made them divine and assured their salvation. Emerson believed that there is an essential unity in apparent variety, that there is a correspondence between the world and the spirit, and that nature is an image in which man can perceive the divine.
Emerson states that when he himself stands in the woods, he feels the Universal Being flowing through him. This notion of the Universal Being, which he identifies with God, is what many readers identify as transcendentalism. Every object in nature, including each human, partakes of this animating life force; through it, all objects in nature are linked. However, Emerson suggests a paradoxical relationship when he writes, “I am nothing. I see all.” (Emerson, 2003) Finding oneself only by first losing oneself is a recurring—and puzzling—theme in much transcendental thinking. We must read many of Emerson’s ideas symbolically rather than literally, and, above all, we should remember the importance of his message and not get sidetracked by the images he uses to communicate his ideas.
Emerson’s discarding traditional ways of viewing the world indicates the importance that progress will play in the essay. The worm/man relationship in the 1849 epigraphic poem contains verbs—“striving” and “mounts”—that connote the idea of progress. (Emerson, 2003)..............
