Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Ralph Waldo Emerson's association with the transcendental movement can be linked to the ideas he expressed in his essay, "Nature," where he emphasizes being true to oneself, individuality, and nonconformity. Emerson also explains his ideas regarding the soul and its connection with nature and God. It looks at how two poets whose work reflects this type of thinking are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and how these writers discover a path to self, soul, and identity through their experiences, ideas that can be traced to Emerson's writings.

From the Paper:

"In his essay, "Nature" Ralph Waldo Emerson urges man to think independently. He opens his essay with by advancing the idea that that we consider for ourselves a "philosophy of insight and not of tradition" (Emerson 994). With this idea, he builds upon the theory that much of life is still left to be discovered, we must only be open to it and connect with it. The wide universe, according to Emerson, is composed of "nature and the soul" (994). Emerson held a profound respect for nature and its beauty. He states that when he is in the presence of nature, he "become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God" (996). Here we see how Emerson attempts to focus on nature as it manifests itself through his senses."

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