Transcendentalism Reading Log and Quote Analysis
English III 2012
These next few weeks, we are studying the principles of Transcendentalism, and how they are reflected in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
You will need to keep the following ideas/concepts in mind as you read:
1) The Oversoul---nature, God and man intertwined
2) Man’s Divinity---man is holy when in nature
3) Self-Reliance—doing work for yourself, without the help of others
4) Non-Conformity and the Individual---be unique; do not follow the crowd; listen to your own heart
5) The Importance of Nature---what nature teaches you and does for you, how it reflects your moods, God in Nature
Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” p. 370-372: Respond to the questions below. When you finish each box, label it with the aspect of Transcendentalism beneath the
corresponding box.
“Envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide”
What does it mean to envy something or
someone? What kinds of things do we envy?
“No kernel of nourishing corn can come to him
but through his toil bestowed on that plot of
ground which is given to him to till.”
“Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron
string.”
What image does an ‘iron string’ connect with?
What is Emerson’s message to all of us using
the farming metaphor?
What is Emerson’s message? Translate this into
your own words.
Are we entitled to that “nourishing corn” or
what do we have to do to get it?
What does Emerson’s motto of ‘trust thyself’
mean? Translate this into your own words.
Why did he use the word “suicide” despite its
drastic meaning?
“Whoso would be a man, must be a
nonconformist.”
Define nonconformist. Why does Emerson say if
you want to be a man, you must be one of
these?
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
minds.”
“To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Define consistent. What is Emerson’s message
about listening to the changing opinions of the
crowd?
List the important figures Emerson uses to
argue this point. What types of people were
they?
Define hobgoblin. Why do you think he uses this
word connected with both ‘foolish consistency’
and ‘little minds’?
Do you agree or disagree with Emerson’s
message?
Emerson’s “Nature” p. 373-374: Respond to the questions below. When you finish each box, label it with the aspect of Transcendentalism beneath the
corresponding box.
“Nature is a setting that fits equally well a
comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the
air is a cordial of incredible virtue.”
“In the woods, too, man casts off his
years…and at what period soever of life, is
always a child. In the woods, we return to
reason and faith.”
“I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing’
I see all; the currents of the Universal Being
circulate through me; I am part or particle of
God.”
What is Emerson’s message about nature’s
abilities?
Emerson makes a point about nature and man’s
age. What is it?
What does the ‘transparent eyeball’ signify?
Why are children closer to nature? Reflect on
this idea.
Define cordial. Is this is a positive or negative
connotation?
What happens to Emerson when he goes out in
nature and his connection to it and God?
Why do we return to faith when we are in
nature?
“…an occult relation between man and the
vegetable. I am not alone and
unacknowledged. The power to produce this
delight, does not reside in nature, but in man,
or in a harmony of both.”
What is Emerson implying happens between
man and nature?
“Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire,
but the same scene which yesterday breathed
perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the
nymphs is overspread with melancholy today.”
What natural connection does Emerson make
here between the personified Nature (like a
female) and the four seasons?
What are nymphs? What quality occurs here
when Emerson uses these creatures?
Why is he not truly alone, although there be no
other human around?
“Nature always wears the color of the spirit.”
What is Emerson’s central message here?
Give an example of nature “wearing the color of
the spirit.” Do you believe this to be true?
Thoreau’s Walden p. 380-387: Respond to the questions below. When you finish each box, label it with the aspect of Transcendentalism beneath the
corresponding box.
*What is ironic about when Thoreau began his journey to Walden Pond to build his cabin in the woods? How long was he gone? How far away from town was he?
“I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of
life, and see if I could not learn what it had to
teach, and not, when I came to die, discover
that I had not lived.”
What is Thoreau’s purpose for absenting
himself from society and going into nature?
“I say let your affairs be as two or three, and
not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a
million count half a dozen, and keep your
accounts on your thumbnail.”
“still, we live meanly like ants…our life is
frittered away by detail. I wanted to live
deeply and suck out all the marrow of life…”
What is Thoreau implying about the way we
What is Thoreau attempting to say here by
using small and large numbers and man’s
thumbnail?
What does “Carpe Diem” mean and how does it
connect with Thoreau’s message?
How many little things can we have time for if
we can only keep them on our thumbnail?
“..to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put
to rout all that was not life”
What does this allusion signify about the type
of life Thoreau meant to live?
Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a
day; if it be necessary, eat but one; instead of a
hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things
in proportion…We are determined to be
starved before we are hungry.”
Which of Ben Franklin’s 13 Virtues does this
most closely resemble and why?
“Hardly a man takes a half hour’s nap after
dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his
head and asks, ‘What’s the news?’ as if the
rest of mankind has stood his sentinels.”
What modern situation or social media network
would Thoreau condemn us for wasting our
time on?
How does Thoreau feel about the post-office
and why? What does this connect to in modern
day?
“Let us spend one day as deliberately as
Nature, and not be thrown off the track by
every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls
on the rails.”
What is his message here? What does the
‘nutshell’ and ‘mosquito’s wing’ signify?
From “Solitude”
From “The Pond in Winter”
From “Spring”
Read this segment and respond: Does Thoreau
feel lonely in nature, or what does he find in it?
Use a line from the text to support your answer.
Read this segment and respond: What do most
people assume about winter and nature? How
does Thoreau contradict this when he discusses
the fish under the ice?
Read the segment and respond: What was one
of the reasons that Thoreau came into the
woods?
Which Transcendental idea does this match to?
What does Thoreau mean when he says,
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our
heads”?
What shifts are there in Nature as spring
arrives? Use a line from the passage to support
your answer.
From “Conclusion”
From “Conclusion”
From “Conclusion”
Why did Thoreau leave the woods he had
entered all those months ago?
“If a man does not keep pace with his
companions, perhaps it is because he hears a
different drummer. Let him step to the music
which he hears…”
What is Thoreau’s message about poverty
when he says to “cultivate [it] like a garden
herb..” and “it is life near the bone where it is
sweetest”?
“How worn and dust, then must be the
highways of the world, how deep the ruts of
tradition and conformity!”
What is Thoreau’s observation, not unlike
Emerson’s, of conformity?
What does Thoreau say will happen if one tries
to reach his dreams?
What does Thoreau want us to do? How does
this connect to Emerson’s “iron string”?
What is Thoreau’s message about loving your
life, when he says “it looks poorest when you
are richest”?
Thoreau ends with this: “The light which puts
out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day
dawns to which we are awake. There is more
day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”
What is he implying here?