Early American Transcendentalism

Early American Transcendentalist text communicated diverse views of nature through the use of rhetorical strategies such as similes, metaphors, parallelism, repetition, imagery, and rhetorical questions. The various essays and module, shows how the diverse view of early American Transcendentalists saw nature as beautiful and serene. Some also saw nature as a way to discover one’s true self, but must do so by believing in one’s own power and resources, rather than relying on others for support. There were others saw nature as a phenomena that could be tampered with as long as it brought back something that they cherished. In the essay “from Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the module “Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty ” by Carolyn Said, and the

According to Emerson, a benefit of being in nature is the ability to discover one’s true self. A person can discover their true self in nature because like Emerson states, a poet can integrate nature as a whole, while an ordinary person cannot when they are in nature. “There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men’s farms, yet to this their warranty deeds give no title” (Emerson 182). What Emerson means when he wrote these words are that ordinary people tend to pass by sceneries that do not fascinate or catch their eye, while a poet will look at sceneries in multiple perspective and put the scenery together, creating a masterpiece. Another important fact that can be learnt from Emerson’s essay is that a child can see nature better than an adult. “To speak truly, few adults persons can see nature. Most persons . . . [S]hines into the eye and heart of the child” (Emerson 182). The reason that Emerson believes that a child can truly see nature better than an adult is explained later in the essay by Emerson. The reason that Emerson gives for his deduction is that he makes a comparison between nature and a child. Emerson considers both nature and a child to be youthful and constantly curious of the world. Emerson suddenly takes a different path in his writing career when he chooses to write a different essay about relying on one’s