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EMERSON AND THOREAU
DEFINITION OF TRANSCENDENTALISM:
FOUND POEM ASSIGNMENT:
Close Reading, Concept Definition, Compare and Contrast Paper
In pursuit of creating your own working definition of American Transcendentalism, you will create two found poems: one from the writings of Ralph Emerson: "Nature" (1836) and "Self Reliance" (1841) and one from the writings of Henry Thoreau: Walden (1854).
"Found poem": a poem which extracts the words, phrases, and sentences of a literary work and organizes them in a poem. You do not have to follow the order in which the passages occur in the text. This should be 70% of the found poem. There are no guidelines for meter, rhyme, or line length.
The creator of the found poem should insert their own words and lines of poetry within the adopted phrases, but you must indicate that the words are not the author's words by placing them in parentheses ( ). This should be 30% of the found poem.
You should select passages from the writers that contain poetic devices: metaphor, simile, hyperbole, undertatement, allusion, personification, imagery, connotations, tone shifts, and sound devices. The lines of poetry you write should contain poetic devices as well.
See pages 102-123 in Writing Principles and Patterns for model poetic devices and how to write about the poetic lines you create. Of course, you should also write about the poetic devices present in the language you excerpt from Emerson and Thoreau.
In addition to creating the found poem, you must develop at least three transcendental concepts in each poem and the significance of the poem to your understanding of the literary texts from which they were extracted. These concepts should allow your entire paper to achieve the goal of creating an overall working definition of Transcendentalism.
You must define Emerson's Deified Transcendence and Thoreau's Organic Transcendence in this paper, so ensure that your found poems include excerpts that capture these ideas. This link to the slide deck contains the key passages of Deified Transcendence and Organic Transcendence.
NON HONORS PROMPT: Create ONE found poem: one from either Emerson's excerpts and your lines of poetry OR ONE from Thoreau's excerpts and your lines of poetry. Analyze your found poem for at least three poetic devices and three transcendental concepts.
In addition, you should include at least one painting from either the British Romantic Painters or the American Hudson River School Painters and analyze how the painting captures a previously defined or new Transcendentalist concept. This link takes you to the slide deck of paintings shown in class. (You can find other paintings and analyses of these paintings by conducting a Google Image search of the painter's name).
HONORS PROMPT: Create two found poems: one with Emerson's excerpts and your lines of poetry and one from Thoreau's excerpts and your lines of poetry. Analyze each found poem for at least three poetic devices and three transcendental concepts.
In addition, you should include at least one painting from either the British Romantic Painters or the American Hudson River School Painters and analyze how the painting captures a previously defined or new Transcendentalist concept. This link takes you to the slide deck of paintings shown in class. (You can find other paintings and analyses of these paintings by conducting a Google Image search of the painter's name).
ALL PAPERS:
1 Identify and analyze at least three of the six FICTS: Figurative language: metaphor, simile, irony, allusion, Imagery, Connotations, Tone shifts, and Sound Devices: alliteration, assonance, consonance. SEE THE WRITING GUIDE FOR CLOSE READING EXAMPLES: pages 102-123 in Writing Principles and Patterns.
-Figurative Language: metaphor, simile, verbal irony: hyperbole and understatement, situational irony, dramatic irony, paradox, personification
-Simile or Metaphor: see this link
-Imagery: see this link
-Connotations: see this link
-Tone shifts: see this link
-Sound Devices: alliteration, assonance, cacophony, euphony see this link
2 Analyze the poem for at least three Emersonian / Thoreauvian concepts. (See the Transcendental Concept Page).
High level papers will not only connect these concepts to an overarching definition of Transcendentalism but will also connect the concepts to an environmental ethic: "a thing is right when it tends to preserve the sustainability of the biotic community; it is wrong when it tendfs otherwise." (Aldo Leopold A Sand County Almanac 1949).
Non Honors Outline Guide:
I. Title
A. Introduction
1 Opener: passage? painting? directive? short narrative?
2 Bridge:
3 Embedded Plan and Thesis: develop the topics of the major passages and connect to a thesis that develops a working definition of Transcendentalism.
B. Body 1
1. Passage from your found poem #1
a. Condense
b. Close read by FICTS
c. Concept Definition 1
d. Connect with phrases from concept
e. Concept Definition 2
f. Connect with phrases from concept
C. Body 2
1. Passage from your found poem #1
a. Condense
b. Close read by FICTS
c. Concept Definition 3
d. Connect with phrases from concept
D. Painting Analysis (this can occur anywhere the paper)
1 Insert Painting
a. Condense: state the painting's message
b. Analyze the painting for a stylistic element: line, space,
shape, color, texture. This link will help your analysis.
c. Concept Definition
c. Connect with phrases from the concept
d. Compare painting to poem and concepts
e. Contrast painting to poem and concepts
G. Conclusion
1. Transition from last topic to the thesis
2. React to value of Emerson, Thoreau, and Painting
3. Return to opener in language or idea
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Honors Outline Guide:
I. Title
A. Introduction
1 Opener: passage? painting? directive? short narative?
2 Bridge:
3 Embedded Plan and Thesis: develop the topics of the major passages and connect to a thesis that develops a working definition of Transcendentalism.
B. Body 1
1. Passage from your found poem #1
a. Condense
b. Close read by FICTS
c. Concept Definition
d. Connect with phrases from concept
C. Body 2
1. Passage from your found poem #1
a. Condense
b. Close read by FICTS
c. Concept Definition
d. Connect with phrases from concept
D. Body 3
1. Passage from found poem #2
a. Condense
b. Close read by FICTS
c. Concept Definition
d. Connect with phrases from concept
e. Compare poems / concepts
f. Contrast poems / concepts
E. Body 4
1. Passage from found poem #2
a. Condense
b. Close read by FICTS
c. Concept Definition
d. Connect with phrases from concept
e. Compare poems / concepts
f. Contrast poems / concepts
F. Painting Analysis (this can occur anywhere the paper)
1 Insert Painting
a. Condense: state the painting's message
b. Analyze the painting for a stylistic element: line, space,
shape, color, texture. This link will help your analysis.
c. Concept Definition
c. Connect with phrases from the concept
d. Compare painting to poems and concepts
e. Contrast painting to poems and concepts
G. Conclusion
1. Transition from last topic to the thesis
2. React to value of Emerson, Thoreau, and Painting
3. Return to opener in language or idea
TRANSCENDENTALIST CONCEPTS
EMERSON’S “NATURE” CONCEPTS:
-natural self: a self that removes all barriers between man and nature and allows the individual mind: reason, intuition, and emotions to become analogous to observations of nature. A self that is without discontent.
-"inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other" (Emerson “Nature”)
-“its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike”
(Emerson “Self-Reliance” 151)
-“you will soon love what is dictated by your nature” (Emerson “Self-Reliance” 155)
-"discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will.” (Emerson “Self-Reliance”158)
-"Perception is fatal for from our involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due"
(Emerson “Self-Reliance”150)
-Societal Self: a self that has no connection to the natural world and all perceptions and thoughts stem from perceiving societal institutions, expectations, and man’s creations.
-Deified Transcedence: a moment of heightened perception in which the observer feels the presence of God in him and in nature and imaginatively perceives nature through the omniscience and omnipresence of God.
COMMODITY:
Anthropocentric: a perspective that concludes that all things in nature serve man’s needs; that man is the center and purpose of the existence of nature
Ecocentric: a perspective that concludes that all things in nature have intrinsic worth, are interrelated, and serve the health and sustainability of an intact ecosystem and perceives the ecosystem as the proper focal point from which to see the value of any object in nature.
BEAUTY:
-Nature as Therapeutic: the perception of nature can soothe the mind and make one more grateful for the gratuitously beautiful and spiritual qualities of nature.
-Apperception: a metacognitive perspective that is self-aware of the workings of the mind, the formation of thought, the cultivation of ideas.
-“Plastic power of the human eye”: the eye and the I (the self) can enhance the unity and, therefore, beauty of nature through the imagination
-Eternity in Present: the iddea that any one object in nature has been forming since the natural world came into existence.
-Interconnectivity in nature: any one object in nature is ecologically interconnected to all other objects in nature.
LANGUAGE:
Words / concepts come from nature: man’s most valuable ideas, concepts and language stem from direct observations of nature for we “fasten words to visible things” (Emerson 215).
SPIRIT:
-Pantheism: a faith that contends that the divine is present in both nature and man
EMERSON “SELF RELIANCE” CONCEPTS:
FAITH IN SELF: because all humans have a moral conscience (given by God), one should follow what one reasonably and intuitively knows to be right.
— “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he.”
NATURAL SELF: a self who follows reasoned and intuitive knowledge and involuntary perceptions in the natural world; a self integrated with nature and free from discontent.
— “ What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? . . .The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin...But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time, all mankind. . .Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind, and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due.
TWO BARRIERS TO SELF-RELIANCE: conformity to the opinions of others; foolish consistency to one’s foolish thoughts
— “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
— “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. . .The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.”
FAITH IN THE WORLD: accept your place in the world, history, events, nature, and contemporaries; all is in service of your good character.
— “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence hasfound for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men havealways done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind thesame transcendent destiny.”
NON CONFORMITY: the rejection of laws, mores, opinions that do not follow what you know to be true allows for self-reliance. Self-assess.
— “These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most requests is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion.”
HENRY THOREAU CONCEPTS
WALDEN (1854)
CONCEPTS FOR “WHERE I LIVED, WHAT I LIVED FOR”:
1 PARADOX OF POSSESSION: one cannot own the land by deed, but one can be possessed by the landscape and know its true value
2 NATURAL TIME: a perspective of time as perceived through natural processes; all object in nature have been forming since the beginning of the world
5 HUMAN TIME: a perspective of time as perceived through a human lens and human endeavors; it is an arbitrary and false measure of the world
6 OPPORTUNITY COST: this is an economic term applied to human choices; the true cost of any choice is the amount of living for the betterment of the self that one forgoes by deciding to commit to a choice.
9 GOD CULMINATES IN THE PRESENT MOMENT: observing nature reminds us that God is present in the formation of all natural processes
10 ETERNITY CULMINATES IN EACH MOMENT: observing nature reminds us all things in nature have been forming and evolving since the inception of the world
CONCEPTS FOR “SOUNDS”
Machine in the Garden (Leo Marx): the idea that man’s constructions create the false perception that man is dominant over nature and the false conclusion that nature serves man’s needs alone.
ECOCENTRISM: perceiving nature from an ecosystem’s perspective allows one to behold the intrinsic value of all things in nature and how they are interrelated to all other things in nature and necessary to the sustainability of an ecosystem
CONCEPTS ON “SOLITUDE”:
THREE REASONS HENRY THOREAU ACHIEVED WAS NOT LONELY WHILE ALONE AT WALDEN POND:
1) Organic Transcendence
2) Deified Transcendence
3) Apperception
1 ORGANIC TRANSCENDENCE: a moment of heightened perception in which the observer feels apart of the natural world, dissolves the barrier between man and nature, and concludes that man is a member of the ecosystem
2 Deified Transcendence: a moment of heightened perception in which the observer feels the presence of God in him and in nature and imaginatively perceives nature through the omniscience and omnipresence of God.
3 Apperception: a metacognitive perspective that is self aware of the processes of one’s thinking.
HENRY THOREAU’S “SPRING” and “CONCLUSION” CONCEPTS:
Inviolable Order in Nature: despite man’s alterations of an ecosystem, nature is always working toward its original state of interconnected equilibrium
God as Landscape Artist: the belief that any changes in the natural world are manifestations of the divine mind.
Microcosm-macrocosm: the idea that any object in nature or any portion of an ecosystem contains all of the relationships that are present in the entire earth’s ecosystem
-“one hillside illustrated the principle of all of nature”
Human animal: “Live like a plant or animal without living an animal life”: live as you are a member of the ecosystem, but retain the human ability to imagine, reason, and intuit.
Great Chain of Being: a hierarchy of order in the world that classifies and ranks the different elements of existence according to levels of will, cognition, and spirituality.
BEING: WILL, COGNITION, SPIRIT
GOD: omnipresent, omniscient, all spirit
ANGELS: can manifest in different forms, conversant with God, spirit in the phenomenal world
MAN: free will, reason, capable of intuiting spirit
ANIMALS: heteronomous: move by instinctual control, instinct, incapable of discerning spirit
PLANTS: growth by photosynthesis, sentient to external forces, incapable of discerning spirit
FIRE: moves by consumption, no sentience, incapable of discerning spirit
ROCKS: moves by outside forces, no sentience, incapable of discerning spirit
Wilderness Preservation: to set aside tracts of nature free from human development so that the intact flora and fauna can flourish in an intact ecosystem
—must have “unexplored forests and meadows” surrounding our “villages” for “in wildness is the preservation of the world”
Limits of Human Understanding: the idea that nature reminds humans that they did not create nature and cannot completely understand its interconnections,
UNIVERSAL INNOCENCE OF NATURE: what in nature (excessive predation / loss of life) seems amoral or immoral to humans is innocent and in service of an equilibrium beyond our understanding, beyond our measure.
“CONCLUSION”
Limits of Human Understanding:: “The universe is wider than our views of it”: all of creation cannot be perceived by man and its interconnectedness
Simplify Life: removing luxuries allows for true perception of “solitude, poverty, and weakness”: when life is reduced to meet one’s basic needs, solitude is not lonely, poverty is full of riches, and awareness of our weakness becomes a strength
Self Reliance: do not rely on others to develop your thinking that informs your actions; absolve yourself to yourself
—”step to the music you hear, no matter how measured and far away”
Metamorphic Motifs: nature is in a constant state of transition to a higher state of being; man should follow nature’s lead
-table larva-butterfly
-societal self to natural self
-impure to pure
-human animal to spiritual
-railroad bank to nature
-seed to flower
-cold to warmth
-winter to spring
-anthropocentric to ecocentric
Sample Found Poem and Honors Poetic Analysis:
"ORGANIC TRANSCENDENCE"
The sun's rays...warm winds blow up mist,
A thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins
Are filled with the blood of winter...(thaw)
Few phenomena gave me more delight...
When the frost comes out...
The sand begins to flow down the (railroad bank's) slopes like lava,...
(You see) the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of
... lichens;
... coral,...
leopard's paws...
birds' feet...
brains ...
lungs...
bowels...
You trace the original forms of vegetation;...
(You stand) in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and (you)
(You've)...come to where (He) was still at work,
Sporting on this bank...with excess of energy
Strewing his fresh designs about...
What is man but a mass of thawing clay?
The very globe continually transcends and translates itself,...
Becomes winged in its orbit...
The ball of the human finger is but a drop congealed.
The fingers and toes flow to their extent
From the thawing mass of the body...
This one hillside illustrated the principle
Of all the operations of Nature...
There is nothing inorganic.
You pass from the lumpish grub in the earth
To the airy and fluttering butterfly.
We need the tonic of wildness.
ANALYSIS OF FOUND POEM:
This found poem focuses upon the wild imagination of Henry Thoreau as he witnesses a thawing railroad sand bank in "Spring"-a final chapter in Walden (1854). He loves to see nature exhibiting her power and return to spring. He especially loves to see nature reclaiming man's alteration of the landscape. As in "Sounds" when he sees and feels nature encroaching upon his small cabin (so much so that he feels there is no barrier between himself and nature), in this moment Thoreau explores how nature is restorative, enduring and ever present in all things-even railroad banks and his cabin that have altered nature. Thoreau is expressing his concept that "there is nothing inorganic" and that "there is no nature" or that there is only the inviolable order of nature. By allowing the railroad bank to be reclaimed by "the inviolable order of nature," Thoreau emphasizes that nature is the most dominant force in the world and is so dominant that we should not characterize it as separate from human society. As a result, Thoreau's Walden develops the concepts of organic transcendence, spiritual and ecological interconnectivity, and metamorphosis to advocate for the preservation of wilderness and for the wilderness experience so humans can recognize that they are not the most dominant force in the world and that they should contribute to the sustainability of the ecosystem as members of the ecosystem.
The auditory image of the sand bank as a human body is key to understanding thoreau's theory that humans are apart of nature. It is helpful to address the rushing of rivulets down the sandbank passage. Thoreau writes, "thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins / Are filled with the blood of winter..." This begins the extended metaphor between the natural world (tenor) and the human body (vehicle). As the frozen streams thaw and begin to move like "veins" passing blood -the life giving force of the body, Thoreau conflates the natural with the human body. He implies that the human body is nature and is part of, not separate from, nature and the divine force that creates nature. This develops the Thoreauvian concept of organic transcendence that expresses the belief that during powerful moments in nature, humans recognize they are apart of the earth.
In the found poem, Thoreau then develops the notion that the energy expressed on the railroad sand bank is present in all of nature-from the vegetative to the animal. His imagination sees the thawing sand bank as dollowing the smae principle of other forms of nature and the human body. He writes:
.. lichens;
... coral,...
leopard's paws...
birds' feet...
brains ...
lungs...
bowels...
are present in the thawing sand bank. Once again, Thoreau's language returns us to the human body. We move from "lichens" to "leopard's paws" to "brains, lungs and bowels." All forms imitate one another and come from the same creative energy in the world. The found poem emphasizes the dramatic shift from the sand bank to vegetation to animals to humans by centering the visual images and giving each image its own line. This slows the reader down and brings emphasis and weight to each "vehicle" of Thoreau's ever-expanding metaphor between the thawing railroad bank and natural objects. The juxtaposition of "lichens" "leopard's paws" "brains, lungs and bowels" implies that their intricate grooves and twists and turns stem from the same divine, creative energy that is in the world.
The point of all this multi-vehicle metaphor making is to convey the sense that the body is a thawing sand back, that man is from the same creative energy in a thawing sand bank, that a cleansed perception can see God "strewing his fresh designs about," and can see all of the interconnected patterns in nature, the Thoreauvian concept of ecological interdependence, and the spiritual infusion in all things. Thoreau's concept that "eternity and God culminate in the present moment" is central to his belief that powerful moments alone in nature can develop a respect for nature as the culmination of eternity and the manifestation of God. As the poem defines organic transcendence, "What is man but a mass of thawing clay?"
Sublime moments allow us to perceive the world from a different perspective. Nature works upon us as much as we work upon it. We "half perceive and create" the world as Wordsworth says. In the found poem Thoreau realizes that perception and imaginative creation are central to his self-proclaimed mission of "sucking the marrow out of life." We need "the tonic of wildness" to transform ourselves through our imaginations to a place in which we see that the "one hillside illustrated the principle / Of all the operations of Nature," to see that we are natural, and to see that nature is resilient and ultimately that "there is nothing inorganic."
Once we half perceive and create this vision, the poem leaves us with the central concept of the entire book: metamorphosis. We leave our "quiet, desperate lives behind and we "pass from the lumpish grub in the earth / To the airy and fluttering butterfly" through "the tonic of wilderness." This metaphor between the transformation of the grub to the butterfly and the desperate, societal man to an enlightened, spiritual, organic man works well because as the butterfly is able to soar to heights inaccessible to the grub, the enlightened man can soar to heights of understanding about the spiritual and ecological interconnectivity in the natural world that the societal man cannot access.
In the end, the found poem captures Henry Thoreau's reverence for how powerful moments in nature can lead to a higher understanding of the self, nature and God. It follows that Thoreau concluded with his concept of wilderness preservation in the passage "we need the tonic of wildness" which echoes the longer passage, "our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it." We still revere Thoreau as the first American environmentalist who advocated for wilderness preservation and owe our understanding of the spiritual value and intrinsic value of nature to him.
NOTICE THE LANGUAGE LIFTED FROM WALDEN:
DEFINITION OF WILDERNESS IN THE WILDERNESS ACT OF 1964
A wild
erness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.
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