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Comparing Song Of Myself By Walt Whitman And Henry David Thoreau

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Transcendentalism is the idealistic philosophy that our spirits have a deep connection with nature and everything on Earth is connected to our souls. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau were major figures in the Transcendentalist movement. Today, society and technology are modern foundations that go against their transcendentalist ideas. This past Saturday I was able to apply their beliefs of nature and solitude while working my weekly job at Hillview Farms, built in 1865. I worked the “pavilion”, selling donuts and cider to apple pickers. The pavilion is an enormous field that also includes countless apple trees with beautiful and tall oak trees surrounding the perimeter. I decided to take pictures to document the nature and when my phone died I began the experience. …show more content…

This time while my phone was dead, I had no access to entertainment such as Instagram and no means of communicating with my friends or to people back down in the farm store. I had found other ways to entertain myself such as walking around the field and picking my own apples from the apple trees or just sitting and looking at nature. “Smile, O voluptuous, cool-breath’d earth! - Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees” (Whitman, 43). I related to this quote from Walt Whitman's, Song of Myself, and while gazing at the distance each object of nature stood out. The countless types of trees and the warm sun in the horizon gave a peaceful and soothing mood. I felt relaxed and forgot about the stressful things in life. The quote “Every natural action is graceful” by Emerson in his essay, Nature, reminded me of how each object in nature is elegant and beautiful, no aspect of it is

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The Payne studies of 1928 contributed a great deal to help secure censorship for all aspects of media. W. W Charles, the director of the Bureau of Educational Research at Ohio State University and Reverend William Short, organizer of the Motion Picture Research Council brought together a team of people from various to facilitated the study (Spring, p. 331). The reason the studies took place is because of the negative effects it was having on children when sleeping so this began the study with different groups studies. The Payne studies also found other negative effects in types of movies shown to children in the interim such as intimacy, daydreaming, ideas being planted in the minds of children, grades falling, heightened emotions and misbehavior

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Nature is undeniably beautiful. There is something so angelic about the way it surrounds us everywhere we go. Nature is essential to life. " The Calypso Borealis," an essay by John Muir, and William Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud," both describe their perspectives and mood towards nature. Nature highly impacts both these authors according to their writings.

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"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.”- Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalism is an American philosophy that revolves around self-reliance and independence, commonly in nature, a Transcendentalist wants to find the true meaning in life. I believe that Chris McCandless was a Transcendentalist because he was able to leave his whole life behind and take on a minimalist lifestyle while having a strong relationship with god. However, I believe that I am not a Transcendentalist, but simply an adventurer.

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In the wilderness, one can discover solace and inner peace. Transcendentalism romanticized nature and glorified self-sufficiency within it. These writers wrote poetically about their experiences in the natural world, and framed it as something that was pure and sacred, and apart from human civilization (Gracia). In the eyes of Transcendentalists, nature is seen as pure because it is untainted by human influence. They believed that society and its institutions often corrupted our true selves, but nature remains unspoiled and

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John Muir states “It seems wonderful that so frail and lovely a plant has such power over human hearts” (Muir). These words create a spiritual mood and make me feel the power of nature. The words “rejoicing”, “glorious” and “cried for joy” add to the mood of the story because they really create the feeling of having joyous revelation when someone is in harmony with nature. Wordsworth, on the other hand, states that “A poet could not but be gay, /In such a jocund company” (Ln 15-16).

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I observed nature at work; the birds singing their song, the trees and grass dancing in the music of the wind, and the overall peacefulness of the area. There I stood, emotionless, with nothing running through my mind but the picture of the beauty that stood in front of me. The wide, flat, dry area reminded me of the plains, with tall, wild grasses that covered the land, and nothing but emptiness and flatness all around. I stood there, amazed, thinking of all of the insects and animals who took shelter in there, and realized that there was more to life than us

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Transcendentalist writers were focused on the belief of the divinity of the individual soul, the inner voice, (Crawford, Kern & Needleman, 1961) to overcome social stereotypes and to avoid conformity. It is highlighted the importance to return to nature to enhance the quality of humans beings by living simply since being apart of common social rules is the only way to be in communion with nature’s wisdom. Those transcendental characteristics could be seen in Emerson’s ¨self-reliance¨ or Thoreau’s ¨Walden ¨ bearing in mind that although, Emerson’s ¨Self-reliance¨ adheres more descriptive examples to illustrate metaphors and Thoreau’s ¨Where I lived and what I lived for¨ introduces metaphors creating much more imagery, both make a critique of the modern individual using

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Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman emphasize the importance of living true to yourself and developing complete self-acceptance. To live true to yourself and completely accept who you are, you must understand your identity and your sense of self. In Self-Reliance, Emerson explains that your identity and your sense of self is spiritual. Whitman argues, in Song of Myself, that your identity and sense of self is based on both your soul and your body. While both Emerson and Whitman allow for intimate connections and friendships, Emerson encourages people to have relationships with a select few, whereas Whitman encourages people to connect with everyone and anyone, due to their different views of self.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau both fond nature to be essential to being a whole person: spiritually and emotionally. Emerson saw nature’s effect on people and their thoughts, whereas Thoreau saw the deliberateness of nature and thought that if people could seize the same decisiveness that they would have more to enjoy in life. Both authors believed that humans needed to enjoy nature to be one with the universal being that is the basis of Transcendentalism. Emerson wrote “When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind.” (Nature 693) Emerson was saying that nature is similar to poetry for the mind, in that it is relaxing and wholesome.

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Leilah Smith Dr. Cothren English II G March 1, 2018 Behind the Scenes: The Blissfulness of Nature Nature is a pure and natural source of renewal, according to Romantics who frequently emphasized the glory and beauty of nature throughout the Romantic period. Poets, artists, writers, and philosophers all believe the natural world can provide healthy emotions and morals. William Wordsworth, a notorious Romantic poet, circles many of his poems around nature and its power including his “The World is Too Much With Us” and “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”

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Transcendentalism, a philosophical and social movement, demonstrated how divinity spreads through all nature and humanity. One of the main ideals of transcendentalism, living simply and independently, define as the principle. In matters of financial and interpersonal relations, independence projects as more valuable than neediness. Henry david Thoreau elaborates on these transcendentalist ideals when he travels into the woods and writes an essay.

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