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Transcendentalism Reading Log and Quote AnalysisEnglish III 2012These next few weeks, we are studying the principles of Transcendentalism, and how they are reflected in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. You will need to keep the following ideas/concepts in mind as you read: The Oversoul---nature, God and man intertwinedMan’s Divinity---man is holy when in natureSelf-Reliance—doing work for yourself, without the help of others Non-Conformity and the Individual---be unique; do not follow the crowd; listen to your own heartThe Importance of Nature---what nature teaches you and does for you, how it reflects your moods, God in Nature“Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string.”What image does an ‘iron string’ connect with? What does Emerson’s motto of ‘trust thyself’ mean? Translate this into your own words. “No kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.” What is Emerson’s message to all of us using the farming metaphor? Are we entitled to that “nourishing corn” or what do we have to do to get it? “Envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide” What does it mean to envy something or someone? What kinds of things do we envy? What is Emerson’s message? Translate this into your own words. Why did he use the word “suicide” despite its drastic meaning? Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” p. 370-372: Respond to the questions below. When you finish each box, label it with the aspect of Transcendentalism beneath the corresponding box. “To be great is to be misunderstood.” List the important figures Emerson uses to argue this point. What types of people were they? Do you agree or disagree with Emerson’s message?“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Define consistent. What is Emerson’s message about listening to the changing opinions of the crowd? Define hobgoblin. Why do you think he uses this word connected with both ‘foolish consistency’ and ‘little minds’? “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.” Define nonconformist. Why does Emerson say if you want to be a man, you must be one of these? “Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue.” What is Emerson’s message about nature’s abilities? Define cordial. Is this is a positive or negative connotation? “I 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.” What does the ‘transparent eyeball’ signify? What happens to Emerson when he goes out in nature and his connection to it and God? “In the woods, too, man casts off his years…and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, we return to reason and faith.” Emerson makes a point about nature and man’s age. What is it? Why are children closer to nature? Reflect on this idea. Why do we return to faith when we are in nature? Emerson’s “Nature” p. 373-374: Respond to the questions below. When you finish each box, label it with the aspect of Transcendentalism beneath the corresponding box. “Nature always wears the color of the spirit.” What is Emerson’s central message here? Give an example of nature “wearing the color of the spirit.” Do you believe this to be true? “Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs is overspread with melancholy today.” What natural connection does Emerson make here between the personified Nature (like a female) and the four seasons? What are nymphs? What quality occurs here when Emerson uses these creatures? “…an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. The power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both.” What is Emerson implying happens between man and nature? Why is he not truly alone, although there be no other human around? Thoreau’s Walden p. 380-387: Respond to the questions below. When you finish each box, label it with the aspect of Transcendentalism beneath the corresponding box. “still, we live meanly like ants…our life is frittered away by detail. I wanted to live deeply and suck out all the marrow of life…”What is Thoreau implying about the way we What does “Carpe Diem” mean and how does it connect with Thoreau’s message? *What is ironic about when Thoreau began his journey to Walden Pond to build his cabin in the woods? How long was he gone? How far away from town was he? “I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.” What is Thoreau attempting to say here by using small and large numbers and man’s thumbnail?How many little things can we have time for if we can only keep them on our thumbnail? “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.” What is Thoreau’s purpose for absenting himself from society and going into nature? “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.” What is his message here? What does the ‘nutshell’ and ‘mosquito’s wing’ signify? “Hardly a man takes a half hour’s nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, ‘What’s the news?’ as if the rest of mankind has stood his sentinels.”What modern situation or social media network would Thoreau condemn us for wasting our time on? How does Thoreau feel about the post-office and why? What does this connect to in modern day?“..to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life” What does this allusion signify about the type of life Thoreau meant to live? Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day; if it be necessary, eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion…We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.”Which of Ben Franklin’s 13 Virtues does this most closely resemble and why? From “The Pond in Winter” Read this segment and respond: What do most people assume about winter and nature? How does Thoreau contradict this when he discusses the fish under the ice? What does Thoreau mean when he says, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads”? From “Solitude” Read this segment and respond: Does Thoreau feel lonely in nature, or what does he find in it? Use a line from the text to support your answer. Which Transcendental idea does this match to? From “Conclusion”What is Thoreau’s message about poverty when he says to “cultivate [it] like a garden herb..” and “it is life near the bone where it is sweetest”? Thoreau ends with this: “The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” What is he implying here? From “Conclusion”Why did Thoreau leave the woods he had entered all those months ago? “How worn and dust, then must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!” What is Thoreau’s observation, not unlike Emerson’s, of conformity? What does Thoreau say will happen if one tries to reach his dreams? From “Conclusion”“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears…” What does Thoreau want us to do? How does this connect to Emerson’s “iron string”? What is Thoreau’s message about loving your life, when he says “it looks poorest when you are richest”? From “Spring” Read the segment and respond: What was one of the reasons that Thoreau came into the woods? What shifts are there in Nature as spring arrives? Use a line from the passage to support your answer. ................
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