Sheila Newell
Dr. White
Literature 5535
30 September 2003

God in Nature a Suggestion of Transcendentalism
(Midterm)  

            God in nature is a stylized Romantic ideal that saturates the Romantic landscape. The lofty language in Romantic literature describing how an individual experiences nature creates a correspondence between man and nature: “The landscapes of romance are often outward manifestations of the hero’s or heroine’s inner state” (Bedford 414). And it is this correspondence that suggests a spiritual union of humanity with nature. Exploring the spiritual concept of God in nature begins with our readings in Genesis, The Iroquois Creation Story, two of Anne Bradstreet’s works and James Fenimore Cooper’s, The Deerslayer. Comparing the Pre-Romantic works with Cooper’s work might suggest how Pre-Romantic ideas may have influenced the Romantic landscape, specifically the Romantic landscape in The Deerslayer.

One ancient text from which the Romantics seem to form their idea of God in nature is the book of Genesis: “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed life into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7 handout). God breathing into “the dust of the ground” suggests a synthesizing of God and nature. Nature and humanity are fused when the “dust of the ground” becomes “a living soul.” The fusion forms a trinity: God, nature, and humankind. Romanticism embraces this fusion through Transcendentalism, which Cooper also adopts in The Deerslayer.

He loved the woods for their freshness, their sublime solitudes, their vastness, and the impress that they everywhere bore of the divine hand of their Creator. He rarely moved through them without pausing to dwell on some peculiar beauty that gave him pleasure, though seldom attempting to investigate the causes; and never did a day pass without his communing in spirit, and this, too, without the aide of forms or language, with the infinite Source of all he saw, felt, and beheld.                                    (250)

The glorious scenery causes a spiritual transcendence for the protagonist Deerslayer. Nature, God, and Humankind are represented with the words “woods,” “divine Creator,” and the personal pronoun “he.” The fusion of the trinity is clear in Cooper’s language.

            American Indian narratives add to the mystical nature of creation too. So it would be good, at this point, to consider a point of view from another antiquity source. In The Iroquois Creation Story, as in the Biblical account, a “good mind,” suggesting a god, creates people out of the earth: “he formed two images of the dust of the ground in his own likeness, male and female, and by his breathing into their nostrils he gave them the living souls…” (Norton 20). Humankind coming out of the earth suggests a connection to the earth but this time it is the Indian race and not the White race. A common denominator for both creation stories is the concept that the creator spirit (God) breathes life into the images that are created from “the dust of the ground.” The life breathing act of God into “the dust of the ground” creates the spirit of humankind, thus completing the connection of man to nature. Corresponding The Iroquois Creation Story with the Biblical creation account suggests that the breath of God breathed life into all humanity, which includes the Indian race. Moreover, using an Aristotelian analogy—since a characteristic of God is goodness, and humankind is created in his image according to Genesis 1:27 (handout), then God breathing the breathe of life into the Indian race could suggest the idea of “good” Indians.

Although we don’t know for sure if Cooper knew the above Iroquois story, the story does fit into his philosophical ideals. Cooper creates “good Indians” in The Deerslayer, which draws criticism and accusations: “ ‘[Cooper’s] characters were Indians of the school of Heckewelder, rather than of the school of nature’ “ (Cooper X). Heckewelder was a missionary to the Indians who believed that Indians “had the soul, reason, and characteristics of a fellow being” (X). Heckewelder is worth mentioning because Cooper’s defense of his Indian characterization suggests that he might have used Heckewelder’s ideas in his work. Additionally, it is likely that Cooper knew Genesis and some version(s) of the Indian creation story, so then it becomes increasingly probable that Cooper does model his Indian characters according to metaphysical concepts rather than the common prejudices of the society.

Cooper’s Indian characterization works in three ways to fuse God, man and nature. Firstly, Cooper identifies Deerslayer as “a poor Delaware hunter,” which successfully juxtaposes Deerslayer with the Delaware Indians (384). Secondly, this positioning does two things: it humanizes the Indians and also suggests that some Indians, just as some White men, have a good nature. Thirdly, an Indian who has good qualities like the White man must have a God-breathed spirit within him, which brings us back to the concept that God is in both humanity and nature. Cooper moralizes the Indian through the character of Chingachgook, a Delaware Indian: “Chingachgook will be with his friend, Deerslayer; if he be in the land of spirits, the Great Serpent will crawl at his side, if beneath yonder sun, its warmth and light shall fall on both’ (397). This loyalty to Deerslayer suggests the moral and good character of an Indian; it also personifies the idea of Indians being fused with God and nature just like white people.

Another blending of God into nature comes from Anne Bradstreet. She writes from a Puritan perspective and connects nature’s grandeur with God’s existence. Although I don’t think Bradstreet sees God in nature, I do think that one might glean some Romantic ideas of God in nature from her work. It is interesting to follow a progression in her epic poem Contemplations (Norton 117) as the idea of God in nature seems to develop but also collapses:

Then higher on the glistering Sun I gazed.

Whose beams was shaded by the leafy tree;

The more I looked, the more I grew amazed,

And softly said, ‘What glory’s like to thee?’

Soul of this world, this universe’s eye,

No wonder some made thee a deity;

Had I not better known, alas, the same had I.                                    (22-28)

In these lines, Bradstreet recognizes the glory of the sun and understands why some might see God in the sun, but she knows better, and she pulls back into her Puritan roots. Nonetheless, even as she pulls back, the idea of God in nature still resonates in her writing and fits well into the Cooper Romantic landscape.

            An additional passage from Bradstreet’s life, that might suggest Romantic ideals of God in nature, is when she struggles with “the verity of the Scriptures” (130). She writes to her children explaining her struggles, and how she comes to an understanding of who God is:

I never saw any miracles to confirm me, and those which I read of, how did I know but they were feigned? That there is a God my reason would soon tell me by the wondrous works that I see, the vast frame of heaven and the earth, the order of all things, night and day, summer and winter, spring and autumn, the daily providing for this great household upon the earth, the preserving and directing of all to its proper end. The consideration of these things would with amazement certainly resolve me that there is an Eternal Being.                                                              (130)

Bradstreet’s epiphany experience is directly related to her observation of nature. She did not find God in the Scriptures, nor did she find God in any miracle because she had not seen a miracle, but she could see the evidence of God by looking at nature, which might suggests that God is in nature. A similar passage can be found in The Deerslayer. The character of Deerslayer, like Bradstreet, finds God in nature too:

My edication has been altogether in the woods; the only book I read or care about reading, is the one which God has opened afore all his creatur’s in the noble forest, broad lakes, rolling rivers, blue skies, and the winds, and tempests, and sunshine, and other glorious marvels of the land! This book I can read, and I find it full of wisdom and knowledge.

          (Cooper 383)

This passage is clearly a transcendentalist way of thinking. The woods illustrate the fullness of the Creator. Since the woods “are full of wisdom and knowledge,” which are also a characteristic of God, then the fullness of God is also in nature. Bradstreet, similar to the character of Deerslayer, understands that she can experience God through His creation, which again suggests that God is in nature.

            Biblical nuances are the stylistic devices that Romantics use to romanticize nature effectively creating the “God in nature” of Romanticism. In the antiquity literature, God breathing into the “dust of the ground” creates an indwelling of God into all of His creation, as Deerslayer notes: “God is observable in all nat’ral objects” (Cooper 397). Kayla Logan concurs with the fusion concept when she writes in her midterm introduction that Romanticists “use Biblical allusions to achieve an elevated style and to present a moral appeal to their audiences.” The synthesizing of God, man and nature, from Pre-Romantic texts exemplifies the Biblical allusion that Cooper incorporates into The Deerslayer effectively creating the “God in nature” concept that Romanticism embraces.

Works Cited

Bradstreet, Anne. “Contemplations.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W W Norton & Company, 2003. 116.

----------- “To My Dear Children.” New York: W W Norton & Company, 2003. 130

Cusick, David. “The Iroquois Creation Story.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W W Norton & Company, 2003. Trans. David Cusick. 17-21.

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Deerslayer. New York: Bantam Books, 1982.

Logan, Kayla. “American Romanticism Midterm.” 13 June 2002. 17 September 2003<http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5535/models/2002/midterms/logan.htm>

Murfin, Ross, Supryia M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. New York: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2003.

The Holy Bible, King James Version (1611; New York: American Bible Society.). “The First Book of Moses, called Genesis.” (Class Handout).