American Transcendentalism:
Nature
Grant Britzke
South Newton High School
American Trancsendentalism: Nature
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American Transcendentalism: Nature
In the mid-1800s there was a group of people who believed in simple living and a free state of
mind. These “Transcendentalists,” as they were called, were writers, poets, and preachers that
spread the word of their ideas through lectures and essays. Transcendentalism was not a
religion, but it was, more or less, a way of living; a philosophy on life that paved the way for
later generations. This group had conjured ideas that were so far ahead of their time that they
were often ridiculed for them.
Such ideas as women’s rights and racial equality were
expressed. They believed that everything in the world is of importance. Three of the major
Transcendentalists were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, all of
which put particular emphasis on their views of nature: Emerson in “Nature” and “The Method
of Nature,” Thoreau in Walden, “A Winter Walk,” and “Walking”, and Whitman in “Preface to
Leaves of Grass”.
The three often had conflicting views about specific tenets of
Transcendentalism.
Walt Whitman was considered to be Transcendentalist because of essays of his like Leaves of
Grass. In the preface to that essay, Whitman addresses man’s involvement in nature with the
following lines:
Not nature nor swarming states nor streets and steamships nor prosperous
business nor farms nor capital nor learning may suffice for the ideal
man…(dic) nor suffice the poet (Whitman, “Preface to Leaves of Grass,” p. 2).
Here, Walt Whitman says that man is greedy and selfish.
Large quantities of money
(prosperous business) or knowledge (learning) or nature can please a man for he will always
covet more than he has or contains. In the present day we see this constantly. A wealthy man
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will lose everything because he gambled with his earnings all because he wanted more than
what he had.
Henry David Thoreau disagrees with Whitman’s views about man’s involvement with nature.
He says that…
The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side; and where
walls and fences, we see fantastic forms stretching in frolic gambols across
the dusky landscape, as if Nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields
by night as models for man’s art (Thoreau, “A Winter Walk,” p. 1).
Thoreau states that man wants to spread nature through forms of art. This idea contrasts that
of Whitman in that he thinks that man is greedy and wants nature to himself and Thoreau
thinks that man puts nature into art so he can display it proudly.
In the essay, “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson adds a third point-of-view to man’s involvement
in nature. He says that…
Nature is so pervaded with human life, that there is something of humanity in
all, and in every particular (Emerson, “Nature,” p. 18).
Emerson believes that man has tainted nature by his involvement in it. Emerson’s ideas in this
passage contrast both the ideas of Walt Whitman as well as those of Henry David Thoreau.
Emerson says that man has tampered too much with a good thing, Thoreau says that man
mimics nature through art, and Whitman says that nature is simply not enough to please man.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson addresses the importance of nature to man in this passage from “The
Method of Nature”:
In the absence of man, we turn to nature, which stands next. In the divine
order, intellect is primary; nature, secondary; it is the memory of the mind
(Emerson, “The Method of Nature,” p. 3).
As Emerson states, nature has precedence over man in the divine order. For without nature
there would be no man. In other words, nature is more involved in the life of man than man is
involved in nature.
Walt Whitman, on the other hand, says the opposite in this passage from “Preface to Leaves of
Grass”:
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise
riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others… (Whitman, “Preface to Leaves of
Grass,” p. 5).
Whitman disagrees with Emerson with this tenet. Whitman believes that man is of more
importance to nature. He says that man must love nature and give up riches and support
insanity.
Henry David Thoreau agrees with Emerson when he says…
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 (Thoreau, Walden, p.66).
Thoreau believes, as does Emerson, that nature is a determining factor in the importance of
nature to man. He believes that nature can teach lessons to man that man, himself, could not
teach.
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In his work, “Walking,” Henry David Thoreau demonstrates the greatness of nature through the
following passage:
I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we
unconsciously yield to it, will direct us alright (dic) (Thoreau, “Walking”, p. 5).
By making this statement, Thoreau explains that nature is so great that it can redirect us onto
the right path. The ability to do that is really something of greatness.
Whitman more or less agrees with Thoreau on this point. In “Preface to of Grass” when he
explains that…
The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness of triviality. If he breathes into any
thing that was before thought small it dilates with the grandeur and life of the
universe (Whitman, “Preface to Leaves of Grass,” p. 4).
When a poet writes about subject matter that was previously thought to be unimportant, it
takes on the greatness of the universe (nature). Both Thoreau and Whitman believe that
nature is a force of true greatness, as does Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In “Nature,” Emerson writes that…
Nature never wears a mean appearance (Emerson, “Nature,” p. 2).
For something that is “so pervaded with human life” to never express ill-will is great in itself.
Even the most forgiving person will, at one time or another, wear a mean appearance.
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In this case, all three authors agree with each other and that is part of the reason they were
considered part of the same group. But just as modern-day members of the same political
parties will disagree and debate with other members of the same group, Transcendentalists’
views often differed from individual to individual. Does it mean, though, that just because two
members of the same affiliation argue with one another that they should not be considered
unified? Of course not. Throughout the course of history, man has fought man and when all is
said and done, both sides often come out with a different outlook than they had before. It is
simply the nature of man.
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Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Method of Nature.” Delivered before the Society of the Adelphi,
Waterville College, Maine, 11 Aug. 1841. American Transcendentalism Web. Ann
Woodlief. 4 Nov. 2008. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/
emerson/essays/method.html>
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature.” American Transcendentalism Web. Ann Woodlief. 4
November 2008. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/
essays/naturetext.html>
Thoreau, Henry David. “A Winter Walk.” American Transcendentalism Web. Ann Woodlief. 5
Nov. 2008.
<http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/
winterwalk.html>
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 1960.
Thoreau, Henry David. “Walking.” American Transcendentalism Web. Ann Woodlief. 5 Nov.
2008.
<http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/walking.html>
Whitman, Walt. “Preface to Leaves of Grass.” Published in 1855. E-Text On-Line Database.
University of Virginia Library-Electronic Text Center.
19 Oct. 2007.
<http://www.etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Whi55LG.sgm&images=images/
modeng.html>