." - Ralph Waldo Emerson A Condensation of Its Context Toward the end of his notebook, "Naturalist," Ralph Waldo Emerson entered sentence (dated 1853) that marks a symbolic vision of nature familiar to his readers and, in more recent years, of concern to his ecologically minded critics: "He is the richest who has most use for nature as raw material of tropes and symbols with which to describe his life." (2) One can see why the tradition of reading Emerson's nature writing and environmental aesthetics in sharp contrast with Henry David Thoreau's--Thoreau viewed as "Emerson's ea...

• Word Count: 9971
• Approx Pages: 40
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Ralph Waldo Emerson establishes this belief by making the assertion that, "every young man [or woman] is born with some determination in his [or her] nature, and is a potential genius" (Emerson). ... Emerson states that, "the child is as hot to learn as the mother is to impart, " symbolizing that every child is born with a passion for learning" (Emerson). ... In fact, this number has the potential to be much larger, but it would take the nation wide acceptance of a very unpopular belief: academics are not the key to success alone. ... Emerson acknowledged this belief when he presented the opin...

• Word Count: 694
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The Transcendentalists were characterized by a belief in the doctrine that there existed an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable only through intuition. ... In opposition to Emerson's belief of conformity as negative, that the conformist will be "clapped into jail by his own consciousness" (21), conformity is a necessary characteristic of man developed to avoid very real dangers. ... Emerson claims that "No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. ... With this boldness he dares to suggest that societal rules and laws are completely se...

• Word Count: 1633
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

One of the most influential pieces of literature that Ralph Waldo Emerson composed is Nature. ... In Nature, Emerson challenges the accepted enlightenment views and declares that nature speaks "directly to the self, [and] to the individual mind and soul" (Ruland 119). ... (Baym 217) Throughout the book, Emerson discusses the importance of nature and its relationship to man. According to Emerson, both nature and man are necessary because one is needed in order to understand the other. ... Emerson stresses the inexplicable fulfillment that man can glean from nature. ...

• Word Count: 1963
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself"; - transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is symbolic; - the belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization - this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies: a) the expansive or self-transcending tendency-a desire to embrace the whole world - to know and become one with the world. ... One of the clearest statements of the ideas of Transcendentalism was presented by Ralph Waldo Emerso...

• Word Count: 1093
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This new belief then combined common sense with ideas from European thinkers. ... For romantics, the imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings, and nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning, and cultivation. ... Transcendentalism influenced writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who is responsible for the writing of NATURE and SELF-RELIANCE. ...

• Word Count: 774
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate