Sample Student Research Project, fall 2004
LITR
4232: American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project, fall 2004
Bryan Lestarjette
I Project Myself—Also I Return:
The Emersonian System of Man, Men, and Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson was born in 1803 to a long line of
ministers in Boston. When he was eight years old, his father died, and his
mother opened the house to boarders. They also lived with family in Concord from
time to time. Latin school and tutoring prepared him for Harvard University,
which he attended on scholarship. It was at Harvard that he began writing his
now-famous journals, which he would later mine for the substance of his essays
and lectures. After graduating, he served as a Unitarian minister from
1829-1832, eventually resigning because he did not believe the Lord’s Supper
to be a permanent sacrament and refused to take any part in administering it. He
then spent some time in Europe, especially England, where he met notables such
as Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth. There, he also developed a close
friendship with Thomas Carlyle, which was to last for many years. In 1833,
Emerson took up residence in Concord, Massachusetts, and began his career as a
lecturer and writer.
Emerson’s Nature
Emerson’s first book, Nature, was published anonymously in 1836. It received little attention in its time, but it is now generally recognized as a central collection of Emerson’s basic thought. Ideas about finding truth for ourselves, our correspondence with nature, the “final cause of the world,” idealism, etc., are touched upon in the author’s unique, poetical way.
“Our age is retrospective,” begins the introduction. Not that there is anything wrong with remembering the past and what others have thought before us (someone once said, “To remain ignorant of the past is to remain a child forever.”), but a problem arises when the past and tradition are focused on to the exclusion of originality. Emerson saw a staleness and atrophy in American thought, which was still merely a rugged extension of the parent English thought. “It builds the sepulchers of the fathers,” he writes. Religion, too, has seen decay, according to Emerson. He writes that the present generation should see “God and nature face to face; we, through our own eyes,” just as the original recipients of revelation presumably did. Another person’s encounter or experience is not our own.
In Emerson and Transcendentalism, truth is internal. The soul is infinite, they would say, and contains the ultimate source of truth. Nature, for a given individual, is defined as everything that is not that individual’s soul. “Strictly speaking, therefore,” Emerson writes, “all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE.” Thus, according to this view, the universe is divided into Soul and Nature. We cannot know Nature directly, because we only experience it through sensory perception. An individual’s Soul, however, is another matter. Personal reflection and introspection become quite important here as components to finding truth. However, truth is still seen to be universal, if only it can be correctly understood. Thus, one soul’s truth should not differ from another soul’s truth except perhaps in style or emphasis. Any real difference must result from a faulty reading.
Like other writers associated with Romanticism, Emerson saw society and the manmade world as corrupting, and a hindrance to knowing the Soul. In the pursuit of truth, “a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society,” he writes. He should, then, turn to the natural world (Emerson sometimes uses “Nature” in the normal sense of the word, as well as the “Not Me” sense). However, Emerson is not proposing a scientific pursuit of truth, but a reflective and awed pursuit. “We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects,” he writes; “It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet.” He is concerned with the impression nature makes on us, more than any objective facts. He values the awe caused by the stars rather than the physical stars themselves. Thus, we are still ultimately examining the Soul for truth. Nature reminds us of things (perhaps in a Platonic sense), including the fact that we, too, are ultimately part of the natural world, and in this sense, one with the universe--which is fitting since Emerson still believes truth to be universal.
Nature is also universal, in the sense that it is open to all who observe it. “The charming landscape that I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms,” he writes. “Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape.”
After this overview of his understanding of the Soul and Nature, Emerson attempts to explore the “final cause of the world.” In Aristotle’s Physics, there are four basic types of causes. The first is the material cause: what something is made of. The second is the formal cause, modified slightly from Plato, which is the purpose, idea, and/or definition of an object—what it is “becoming.” Thirdly, there is an efficient cause: who made or produced the object, or how did it come into being? Finally, there is a final cause, which is what Emerson is seeking for the world. A final cause is what something is actually used for, regardless of its purpose. Emerson spends much of Nature seeking the practical benefits of the natural world to mankind.
Emerson’s “The American Scholar”
“The American Scholar” was an address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1837, which was afterwards published in pamphlet-form. It builds on several themes from Nature, especially American independence from European thought and finding truth for oneself.
“Thus far,” Emerson says to the Society in the first paragraph, “our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more.” Once again, Emerson finds fault with the retrospective age, with the “day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands,” feeding “on the sere remains of foreign harvests.” The Americans must find their own identity.
Emerson then alludes to an ancient Greek fable, in which the Olympian gods “divided Man into men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was divided into fingers, the better to answer its end.” The idea fits well with the Transcendental concept of the Over-Soul, the one soul that pervades all men, endowing them with a sort of divinity. Thus, Emerson’s philosophy treats men as divisions of Man, a single organism with a fragmented yet unified Soul. Therefore, “Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all.” With all of our individual contemplation and Soul-searching, society still must function as a whole. Isolation should not be a permanent state. “The fable implies, that the individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all other laborers.” The problem with society is that this never completely happens. Society has been fragmented into smaller groups, says Emerson, and men never meet as Man but as subdivided fragments of Man.
As the fingers are divisions of the hand to assist the hand, so are men to Man. Individual men have functions that benefit the whole. A farmer is not merely a farmer, then, but he is “Man on the farm.” Different men serve different functions. “In this distribution of functions,” writes Emerson, “the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking.” Now at last, we have defined the scholar and his basic role.
Emerson then sets down what he sees as the three main influences upon the scholar: nature, books, and action. Nature, in its infiniteness, is like the spirit. It also teaches him to classify and analyze. He begins to perceive parallels between nature and the Soul. “He shall see, that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering it part for part. One is seal, and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind.” Thus, again Emerson is saying that we study nature as an aid to understanding our own souls.
The second influence upon the scholar, according to Emerson, is “the mind of the past,--in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that mind is inscribed.” He then delves into a discussion of the nature and value of books. Books, to him, are best used for inspiration, but should not be relied upon to the exclusion of our own originality. “Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments,” he writes. “Books are for the scholar’s idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men’s transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must,--when the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shining,--we repair to the lamps…” In other words, we must experience things for ourselves as much as possible, and search nature and our own souls for truth, but when we are struggling, we may see what conclusions others before us have made, and hope that something they say might point us in the right direction.
Thought is here seen as an act of creation, and Man is “a becoming creator” (we recall the formal cause from Plato and Aristotle: that which something is “becoming;” its purpose, ideal, and/or definition). “The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again,” writes Emerson. “It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth.” There is thus something very special about books, for they contain the perceptions of men about truth; they record the thoughts or creations of Man. However, we must still seek a revelation of our own.
The third influence is action. “Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential,” he writes. “It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products.”
The duties of the scholar are to be “the world’s eye” and “heart.” His is a “task of observation.” In his pursuit of truth, he may seem obscure and out-of-touch at times, but Emerson says that this is fine and to be expected. The duties of Man Thinking “may all be comprised in self-trust.” He must be “free and brave” to make correct observations, even if they go against popular sentiment.
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord, the son of French immigrants. He worked as a teacher and tutor for some years after graduating from Harvard, before coming into contact with the Transcendentalists. He stayed in the house of Ralph Waldo Emerson from 1841-1843, coming to acquaintance with Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, and others. He built a hut by Walden Pond, where he lived for a little over two years observing nature, reading, and thinking.
Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government”
In “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849), Thoreau follows Emerson’s advice by challenging acceptable thought and tradition passed down from England and previous generations. As opposed to the highly controlling governments of Europe and the growing bureaucracy and power of the United States government, Thoreau believes “’That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” To clarify, he writes, “Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.” They may be a convenient way to maintain order and resolve problems, but they present their own problems into the mix as well.
Thoreau has a deep distrust of the government, doubting both its necessity and its very integrity. Everything good done in America, in his view, was done not because of the goodness of the government but because of the goodness of the people, which will still be there even without a government. He realizes, however, that America was not ready for anarchy. “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.”
“The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies,” Thoreau writes. “They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc.” In the government, men, the divisions of exalted Man, have been diminished to roles in which they have no room for reflection or thinking, but blindly follow what their superiors dictate to them. They neither think for themselves, nor come together as Man.
Does a slavery-permitting government deserve the complete obedience of its servants and subjects? Thoreau answers emphatically no. Great numbers were in opposition to slavery, yet few of them would stand up against the government that upheld the institution. If each individual would do his or her part, a change could be forced by their combined presence. In fact, to Thoreau, it was not even an option to resist a faulty civil government; it was a duty. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison.” This is an issue of following the truth in one’s own soul, and not cowing before public hostility. Further, if it is true in one soul, and truth is universal, then it must necessarily be true in all souls and the Over-Soul. Therefore, it is the duty of all to stand up against such a government, according to Thoreau.
Thoreau’s Walden
Written in 1854, Walden recounts Thoreau’s experiences at the Hollowell farm and Walden Pond (the vast majority of the piece obviously concerns the latter). A major theme is Man communing with Nature, although ironically Thoreau was living on another man’s land, using another man’s tools, relying on the town for supplies.
The bit about the Hollowell farm echoes Emerson’s sentiment that nature belongs to whoever truly sees it. Thoreau was in the process of buying it when the farmer’s wife changed her mind. Thoreau let them have it back, “but I retained the landscape, and I have annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.” Here he quotes a few lines from William Cowper: “I am monarch of all I survey,/ my right there is none to dispute.” It is interesting that Thoreau “carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow.” He has no interest in the practical uses of the land, but only in its impression upon him. “I have frequently seen a poet withdraw,” he writes, “having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only.” Indeed, in this view it is better not to legally own the land. “As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.” The imagination is, to Thoreau, equal or superior to actual experience. “There was pasture enough for my imagination.”
Simplicity and quality of life is another theme in Walden. “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself,” he writes. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” A good life is a simple life. “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand,” writes Thoreau. Technology is looked down on in this scheme. “But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads?” he asks. A similar view is taken of the government, including the post office: “I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life…that were worth the postage.” He continues, “The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often said in jest.” The media, especially newspapers, are similarly worthless. “If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,--we need never read of another,” he writes; “One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?”
Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman, born in 1819, was partially self-educated. Besides extensive reading and familiarity with literary circles, his experiences included teaching, compositing, office boy duties, journalism, advocacy of the Free Soil Party, etc. He published his first volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass, in 1855, which was praised by Emerson and Thoreau, to whom he acknowledged a literary debt.
Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
Included in Leaves of Grass was the poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Obviously the work of a frank person, the poem extends a number of Emersonian themes.
Whitman writes in section 10:
We understand then, do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish, is accomplished, is it not?
What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is it not?
What is it that Whitman expects us to understand? What is “promis’d without mentioning it?” This seems to be the central point of the poem. Earlier, in section 3, he writes, “I am with you… I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.” In section 11: “Live, old life! Play the part that looks back on the actor or the actress! / Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes it!” Who we appear to be is not who we really are. Whitman, while saying that he is the same way, is challenging us to realize this, and to accept the truth of ourselves. For when this is realized, contemplation of the soul is made possible.
The idea of Man and men is extremely strong in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” “I project myself—also I return,” the poet keeps repeating, following Emerson’s advice that men must meet as Man, but must also break away to examine Nature and the Soul. One is reminded of Plato’s analogy of the cave in The Republic, in which the freed prisoner winds up continually alternating between the truth of the outside and the companionship of his fellows in the cave, whom he wishes to share the truth with, just as Whitman is urging us to see the truth anew here. Also on Man and men (section 2): “The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme.”
There is also the theme of Self and Nature:
We descend upon you and all things—we arrest you all;
We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids;
Through you color, form, location, sublimity, ideality;
Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and determinations of ourselves.
We must study Nature (that which is “Not Me”), because it corresponds with the Soul, and the Soul is the source of truth.
Conclusion
This is the journal of my travels through Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. It has become something of a labor of love for me, as I grapple with the interesting views of these significant writers. Like Emerson, I shall let it stand as it is, but mine it for the substance of my conclusions.
It is said somewhere that Emerson laid the foundation, upon which Thoreau built and Whitman extended. Emerson lays out all the important theories and analogies, and sets the terms of the conversation. Thoreau takes what Emerson said and applies it in a somewhat practical and tangible way, though somewhat lacking in Emerson’s optimism (there was, in fact, a breach between them in later years). Whitman seems to make a whole-hearted return to Emerson’s optimistic spirit and style, and stays much closer to his predecessor’s talking points.
Transcendentalism is often described as hard to describe, complex, and fuzzy. I disagree. Most of the system revealed in what I have read seems to revolve around two divisions: the division of Man into men, and the division between Self and Nature. Everything else works itself out from one or both of these two assumptions. Therefore, it could be argued that this system of thought is, in fact, quite elegant. The two divisions are not even completely separate from or independent of each other. Man divides into men, and each individual man divides the world into his Self and Nature (the “Not Me”). Thus there is a continual back-and-forth between Man as a whole and Self as a part.
My primary regret regarding this project is that time did not permit to include analysis of either Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” or Whitman’s Song of Myself, both of which fit in very nicely with this interpretation. However, it was still a fascinating subject to write on. There! I have projected myself, and now I shall return.
Works Cited
Carr, Jean Ferguson. “Ralph Waldo Emerson.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002; 1512-5.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The American Scholar.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002; 1543-55.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002; 1516-43.
“Emerson, Ralph Waldo.” The Universal Standard Encyclopedia. New York: Standard Reference Works Publishing Company, 1958; 2770-1.
Glick, Wendell P. “Henry David Thoreau.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002; 1669-72.
Thoreau, Henry David. “Resistance to Civil Government.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002; 1672-86.
“Thoreau, Henry David.” The Universal Standard Encyclopedia. New York: Standard Reference Works Publishing Company, 1958; 8438.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002; 1687-1721.
Whitman, Walt. “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” [pending]
“Whitman, Walt(er).” The Universal Standard Encyclopedia. New York: Standard Reference Works Publishing Company, 1958; 9175-7.
Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002; 2863-2914.
Woodlief, Ann. “On ‘Self-Reliance.’” [pending]