You've read just a little Emerson, true. But he has a way of inciting reaction. What are some of yours? I'm more interested in your philosophical response than I am in your emotional response. So not "I liked it/don't like it" but rather, "this resonated for me/I don't understand what Emerson means by_______/or I disagree with Emerson on one point." You get it. It's okay to express confusion, certainly.
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I question Emerson's comment that "Nature never wears a mean appearance." Does Emerson not consider the constant struggle for survival that certain plants and animals are faced with in nature. Many violent actions occur in nature and Emerson has failed to acknowledge this. Also, I don't understand what Emerson means by his point that "few adult persons can see nature." What prevents adults from seeing nature and what enables children to see it?
ReplyDeleteMatthew Fields
When Emerson said "to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both", it really resonated with me and made me think about how this harmony between nature and man is not solely because of nature. It is about the attitude of the person and how they interact with nature. The nature is much more of the reactant in the situation and changes in correspondence to how the person is willing to perceive it. I was really puzzled when Emerson said "debt ... is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be forgone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most." Wouldn't the people suffering be the last people to need debt?
ReplyDeleteAlexi Wattis
Never have I fully reflected on the thought that being alone in ones house with ones possessions is not fully alone because there are many unnatural distractions. I agree with Emerson that the most beautiful part of nature cannot be bought by anyone. The most beautiful part of nature is the whole beauty of the entire landscape or view, not just a manicured garden. I completely agree with the sentence, “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” I find when I am sad in nature I focus on the drooping and diseased plants instead of the blooming bright flowers. I disagree with Emerson’s point about stars, if stars were to occur less often they would be appreciated by a greater population and seen as more rare and exotic. The second passage, Discipline, was more difficult to dissect than Nature. The broad meaning was fairly clear but some details and examples confused me. I noticed in Emerson’s writing style lots of paradoxes used as synonyms (new vs. old, surprise vs. not unknown, reason vs. faith). This writing style makes me stop to reread and reexamine what I have just read looking for a deeper meaning. I am unsure how I feel about this style.
ReplyDelete-Daisy Williamson
Emerson explains his point on the difference between how children and adults see nature through the example of the sun. He says that most people do not truly see the sun. He writes, "the sun illuminates only the eye of the sun but shines into the eye and the heart of the child." The difference between illuminates and shines is that illuminates adds light in order for the adult eye to be capable of sight. Shines goes beyond purely the sense of sight and into his or her heart. It captures the wonder the child has for the world. It is this wonder that Emerson wants to see preserved in one's view of nature throughout their life. He believes that only when one has that wonder can they truly see nature.
ReplyDeleteJulian Smith
I found it interesting that Emerson believes nature to be more accesible to children than to adults, and I believe that is because nature is not meant to be fully understood by us, (which is what adults are more prone to attempt) but rather is meant to be a source of wonder and awe, and in a sense belittlement, a feeling that children are more prone to feel. Only through that sense of wonder can nature be comprehended, if only slightly.
ReplyDeleteEmerson’s use of the idea that the key to wisdom is the ability to differentiate was particularly interesting. When he is discussing the “character and fortune of the individual” and he highlights value in the “perception of difference” he points out the key idea that a large part of our existence is the ability to distinguish between objects, ideas, and their respective purposes. Within that, his mention of the “gymnastics of understanding” creates a resounding point that both flexibility in viewpoint and ability to see gradation creates deeper understanding. But I am unsure if I fully understand what he means when he says, “The understanding adds, divides, combines, measures, and finds nutriment and room for its activity in this worthy scene.” I have a sense that he is talking about how nature’s flexibility makes space for itself in spite of everything around it, yet is it not that nature is what surrounds everything else and those things must learn to develop in the aforementioned nature?
ReplyDelete-Callan Coghlan
Zane Morrissey
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated by Emerson's obsession with this precept of channeling a universal or superhuman status. In some way I feel he is attempting to describe his apotheosis into nature (a higher condition). In his task to achieve this almost out of body experience, Emerson conveys a mind over matter perception of life, describing "Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them own the landscape (Emerson 90)." I find it striking that this tenet of natural superiority of man is held so dearly by Emerson in a time when the superiority of man was divine providence. I really enjoy Emerson's way of iterating how "Every property of matter is a school for understanding," enchanting the world itself with lessons for how we may live our lives. Emerson, in my mind, skillfully interprets the combination of matter and mind without losing his transcendentalist goal of searching for that which is not quite matter or mind, but universal and natural.
Zane Morrissey
I thought it was interesting how he began with the concept of solitude, but later created such a strong feeling, for me, of being interconnected with the environment. I got the feeling that nature was a cushion of safety (although I didn’t quite buy it because nature is not always safe), and that you would always have company, with no people required. I also liked the clear picture of an interconnection that can be positive or negative, depending on the person’s state of being. When the person is aware a friend has died, “the sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.” His awareness of the interconnection makes it obvious that his friend is no longer connected, and sours the rest of the picture. The “Discipline” section was less clear to me. The idea of learning everything you know from experiencing the world around you makes sense, and so does the fine-tuning of man over time by nature, but this quote was confusing: “Proportioned to the importance of the organ to be formed, is the extreme care with which its tuition is provided, - a care pretermitted in no single case.” My guess is that it means the product pales in comparison to the work and materials that go into creating it and keeping it alive, but I’m not sure. I got the feeling he disapproved of man-made systems like property and debt, which are meaningless and impermanent and take us further away from a state of nature. I like the idea of nature putting everything in its own place where it has its own purpose (“Water is good to drink, coal to burn, wool to wear; but wool cannot be drunk, nor water spun, nor coal eaten.”) and I can appreciate that nature teaches us to think in shades of grey, rather than black and white.
ReplyDeleteI strongly resonated with Emerson's idea of nature having an over-arching force that can impact an ordinary human being. Although I found some of his ideas very opinionated, I enjoyed reading his thoughts pertaining to how only very few adults see all of nature, and if we open our minds to nature's presence, it will influence us. What I don't understand is how Emerson can claim that nature is something that we will never fully understand and that it is full of mystery, yet he writes about the subject as if he is aware of everything, even stating: "I am a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all...I am a particle of God."
ReplyDeleteEmerson’s differentiation between state of mind and physical presence regarding the idea of solitude was an interesting starting point for “Nature”. He makes it evident that this idea of solitude, and the lack there of, is an all-encompassing matter that applies to all aspects and every stage of his life. He finds this release from “his chamber as from society” in nature in order to achieve his self-defined status of being a lover of nature. While he does comment on this solitude, I found his use of what it means to be “transparent” in contradiction. In the first paragraph, he addresses “the atmosphere” as transparent, providing one with “the perpetual presence of the sublime.” His definition of solitude, with his idea that there is a continual spiritual presence, provides for the impossibility of a personal isolation of an individual. However, he makes it clear that isolation is not the goal of his take on transcendentalism as he states “I become a transparent eye-ball,” an eye ball that, as he previously stated, lets the sun “shine into ”. In “Discipline,” I found the quote “she pardons no mistakes,” to be the most interesting. It provides a point of confusion and argument with his prior statement in “Nature” that she “never wears a mean appearance.”
ReplyDeleteWhile I did enjoy the content of his essay, I found him to be a little haughty at times, using a euphuistic style. He assuredly states he saw the “charming landscape…this morning,” one that “few adult persons can see,” as he describes it in great detail. As he begins to make himself up to be an almost all-knowing author and alludes to his own high spiritual status, he does remind the reader, and himself, that he is just a “guest” in a “plantation of God.”
After reading the two excerpts from Emerson’s Nature the idea that most resonated with me was the implication that nature wipes a clean state for man upon his arrival in “the perpetual presence of the sublime” (Emerson 90). It seems that the beauty, power, and transcendent spirit of nature enables man to see joy while suffering, become a child in the presence of nature even for the toughest of men, and center the beholder in spirituality and human morality. It turns man into a “transparent… particle of God” and simultaneously gives no more credit to nature than man himself (Emerson 91). Although I find all of this to be both an amazingly intricate and truthful description of nature, I disagree with the point that in order to embrace all that nature has to offer you must be both a poet and a child. Although I do believe that most people are inhibited due to city lifestyle and the frightening overwhelming character of nature that does not make it impossible for the average person to fully embrace all that nature has to offer if given the opportunity.
ReplyDelete- Cora
Emerson’s insight regarding the interface between man and nature is particularly resonant and intriguing to me. He articulates a relationship in which nature’s ideas and emotional states flow through man, liberating him from his griefs and releasing his inner “child.” Emerson describes a near euphoric tranquility and security as the “currents of the Universal Being circulate through [Emerson].” In his valuation of nature’s emotions, he proposes that the poet has a more valid ownership of nature than actual landowners. Poets hope to capture nature’s beauty and emotions (which Emerson calls the “landscape”), which Emerson views as more precious than just owning land. As Emerson says, “It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet.”
ReplyDeleteThe idea that most struck a chord with me in Emerson's "Nature" is the idea that what is truly beautiful in life can be found by simply going out into nature. Often, people don't realize just how lovely the world around them is until they take the time to look up. I completely understand what Emerson meant when he said "The stars awaken a certain reverence". I have found this almost obvious statement to be completely true. Additionally, the way Emerson describes it, it reminds me of the feeling described in the Great Gatsby that the Dutch sailor had when encountering a new world. The fact that anyone can look up at the stars says to me that while it may be difficult to truly become a "lover of nature" as Emerson explains it, it is easy to be appreciative of the beauty surrounding us if we take the time to look and keep an open mind.
ReplyDelete-Keli
To start, I strongly disagree with Emerson’s statement that the stars wouldn’t be adored if they only appeared one night in a thousand, because for special events like an eclipse or even a birthday, the reason for their special-ness comes from their somewhat non-routine nature. On the other hand, I think he is exactly right when he says “The flowers, the animals, the mountains, [reflect] the wisdom of [a wise spirit’s] best hour.” A sentence before that, he states that man’s curiosity in nature will end when all its secrets are out. He clearly thinks that nature is interesting, so I think he is trying to say that we don’t fully understand nature.
ReplyDelete-Adam
The concept that nature is so limitless makes me really think about how small each human is in comparison to the universe. The power of nature is so awe-inspiring, even godly as Emerson describes in "Nature" that no human can truly comprehend its real meaning: my interpretation of "few adult persons can see nature." I think in our daily lives, when we see Mount Tam for example, we only see its superficial appearance, but we do not ponder its history, per example, how perhaps a million years ago it could have been underwater, in a completely different location. We can't comprehend the force of nature, except when it comes to Earth in obvious ways, like the earthquake just the other day. Emerson's idea of never being in true solitude relates back to this, that although "nobody is with me," we are always accompanied by nature.
ReplyDelete-Lucy
Emerson's removed and ethereal tone in "Nature" urges the reader to reflect on Emerson's views on Transcendentalism (and if the reader is unfamiliar, he is here introduced). (Page 91, second paragraph): In the "fields and woods," the narrator succumbs to a foreign feeling of "a higher thought...a better emotion," as if he is set upon by the body of collective, fundamental knowledge that is acquired through nature, yet present in some way in every being--the Transcendent Blob, if you will. This is also linked to the idea that humans are but organisms of the earth, for "In the woods, we return to reason and faith" and "standing on the bare ground...all mean egotism vanishes." Emerson argues that all mortal vices (but, I repeat myself, for wilderness bears no flaw) are vanished in the context of Nature, as do some of the staples of social humanity like "master [versus] servant", for they are of no consequence to any but humans. This concept appears far more absolute in the text (or, at least, in my limited understanding) than does Transcendentalism.
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, in reading I was oft flustered by Emerson's word choice. There is a fine line between poetic and inappropriate phrasing. Far be it from me to criticize the writing of such a notable author, but my reaction was asked, so herein it is given. Consider the sentence: "There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet." Now, I understand the significance of the repetition of "poet," but this seems a rather anomalous place for it. Perhaps it is totally appropriate, and I just require a better understanding, either from Emerson's text itself or in further reading. Probably the latter.
Theo
To illustrate nature as an infinite field of wonder and fascination, Emerson’s perspective of nature is very much opinionated. He states, “Nature never wears a mean appearance,” when in contrary, natural disasters and survival from prey are aspects of a mean appearance. He declares that nature is a mystery to man but he is “a transparent eye-ball; I see all… I am part or particle of God.” Although in confusion of his concepts of a one night showing of stars to be insignificant and a belief that children have more access to nature than adults, his thoughts of nature are very profound.
ReplyDeleteGreat start, group! Your comments are specific and thoughtful—appreciating, questioning and challenging the text. I look forward to taking this further in class today!
ReplyDelete