The emergence of modern science and the scientific method had much to do with this new emphasis on reason. Discoveries made by physical scientists and mathematicians were changing the ways people viewed the universe. Scientific investigation seemed to show that the universe was organized according to certain unchanging laws, and that people could discover those laws through the use of their reason. ...
Both viewed children as the embodiment of innocence and purity, something to be protected and nurtured. ... The movement did not place God as the center of the universe. ... More than that though, it describes man's relationship to nature and his place in the universe. Poe, well known today for his poetry and short stories, such as "The Pit and the Pendulum", is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern detective story. ... Each viewed nature with reverence, an idea that soon sparked the envi...
Plato, through his stories of Socrates and Socrates views, began the debate that has served both as an intellectual argument and an effort to understand human existence for millennia. ... While each illustrates Socrates thinking regarding his willingness to drink poison as ordered by the court, the Crito best illustrates his philosophy regarding his view of life. ... Obviously, Thoreau's antidote to what he saw as the poison infecting the modern "civilized" man was to take to the woods, in order to learn more about the world, what it means to be fully human, and himself: "My purpose in go...
First published in 1841 in Essays, Emerson's "Self-Reliance" is a radical piece of literature which showcases his views about the individual in society. ... 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). ... Shortly upon arriving at Walden Pond, Thoreau began to draft Walden, which documents "his two-year adventure on the pond's shore," which he viewed "as a westward quest for the Emersonian self" (Ruland 125). ... In the ...
." - 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...
