Transcendentalism and Dark Romantics

Emerson on Nature (Paragraph 4&5)

Karlee Wroblewski
Amber Washington
Lindsay Coleman
Colton Gerber

Saying:
First Paragraph- Children are innocent and adults can’t see nature with the innocence that children can.
-Our mindsets change with nature (the seasons or weather)
-When you go into nature, you experience pleasure/ a level of heaven

Second Paragraph- Time slows down in nature, bringing you back to your youth.
- As you are in nature, you are no longer an individual, but a part of something much bigger

Plato: Adults can’t see the sun
-similar to Plato and his saying that people cannot see once released into the sunlight.
-You should use your mind and intuition to see

Imagry:
Breathness Noon
Grimmest Midnight
Transparent Eyeball- you become your mind or intuition without other senses.

From Nature, first three paragraphs:

- Emerson speaks of the divinity of stars – “the perpetual presence of the divine”
- “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence.”
- Necessity of solitude and connection with nature for intuitive and spiritual realization
- “Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of childhood.”
- Platonic influence: Emerson writes about pieces of the whole, which are fully understood when you see the whole.
- “But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is the poet. This is the best part of these men’s farms, yet to this their warranty deeds give no title.”
- imagery of the stars: “One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime.”

1. In this section, Emerson is saying that the human connection between man and nature is the greatest delight of the soul. It reflects the internal emotion and thought, and sometimes it reflects it in a less beautiful way that has been previously unseen by the person which it is reflecting.

2. Emerson reflects the allegory of the cave in his description of nature as not always dressed in finery, as it wears the colors of the spirit. He writes in a way that makes statements and reflects them in the descriptions of nature.

3. He uses imagery of nature and shadows to make his points. He'll make a statement and then use the imagery of nature to reflect it. He also uses vivid descriptions to make the reader think and process what he is saying. In doing that, it really makes the reader understand his point of view.

Zosha, Justin, Azura, and Jude

Moby Dick- Ahab

"Looks like a man cut from a steak"

"his body was made of bronze like persus"

He had grey hairs

Had a scar, compared it to a tree struck by lightning

Had a barbaric white leg

"he had a fixed and formed glance"- Determined about what he wanted to do

As they got further and further out to sea he became less and less recluse (alone)

For “Loomings” -- Make a list of words and phrases that you think reveal how well the speaker knows himself.

Audrey, Zosha, Shane, Amber, and Lindsey

• “Call me Ishmael”
• “damp, drizzly November in my soul”
• “whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off”
• “This is my substitute for pistol and ball.”
• “But the same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all. Now, when I say that I am in the habitat of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger.”
• “For my part, I abominate all honorable, respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every king whatsoever.”