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Examples of Transcendental Thought from “Self Reliance” (p. 370-371)

Label each quotation below with a transcendental theme of: Non-conformity (not following generally accepted beliefs or practices), Self-reliance (depending on one’s own capabilities), or Free thought (discovering higher truths on one’s own, through intuition.) and then explain how each quote develops the theme.

1. “There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide. . . .”

Theme: Non-Conformity

Explanation: Emerson teaches that we should be ourselves and not try to be like everyone else. Following the crowd kills our creativity.

2. “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

Theme: Self-reliance

Explanation: Emerson says we need to follow our hearts to be who we were meant to be. We know better than anyone else what is best for us.

3. “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it…”

Theme: Non-Conformity / Free Thought

Explanation: Emerson says we should decide for ourselves what is good or bad, not blindly follow others’ laws or beliefs.

4. “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude…”

Theme: Non-Conformity

Explanation: Emerson says we need to be true to ourselves wherever we are. When in a crowd, we don’t want to be like everyone else, but we want to stand out as individuals.

5. “The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word. . . . A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. . . . Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”

Theme: Free Thought

Explanation: Emerson says we need to be free to change our minds as we grow and learn. If we believe something today and we see it differently tomorrow, that shows we are thinking.

6. “To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Theme: Non-Conformity

Explanation: Emerson says most people don’t recognize greatness (like Socrates, Jesus, Luther, or great scientists of the past) so if we shouldn’t worry if we don’t fit in. It may be just that our genius is not yet appreciated.

from “Nature” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, p. 373 - 374

1. “In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth” (Emerson 373).

For Emerson, what is the benefit of spending time in the woods? Why would he feel this way?

The woods return him to his childhood. Perhaps he feels this way because he is free from society’s rules and restraints and he can simply enjoy himself in the woods.

2. “In the woods we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair” (Emerson 373).

Why would Emerson consider losing his eyes to be a particular calamity?

Nature is able to restore him emotionally but it could not replace his vision. He needs his sense of vision to take in the wonder of nature and become one with nature and God.

3. “Standing on bare ground…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” (Emerson 373).

a. In what way does becoming a transparent eyeball allow Emerson to become one with nature?

It allows him to let nature flow through him, so that he loses himself in nature.

b. What is meant by the Universal Being?

It is a combination of God and nature that unites with man.

4. “The greatest delight . . . is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I wave to them” (Emerson 374).

What does Emerson mean when he says that the fields and woods “nod” to him?

He feels that nature has a sense of his presence and that they respond to him when plants are waving in the wind.

5. “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit” (Emerson 374).

In what ways does Emerson indicate in the last paragraph that nature reflects our moods?

He feels nature is “tricked in holiday attire” when we are feeling joyful, but “the sky is less grand” when we are sad (as when someone we love dies). He imagines that nature echoes our feelings.

Imagery is descriptive language that appeals to any of the five senses: sight, hearing touch, taste, smell. Imagery evokes a concrete sensation of a person, place, or thing and helps create a mood.

For each of the following excerpts from the selection, a) identify the sense(s) that it appeals to and,

b) describe the mood that it establishes.

1. “In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue” (Emerson 373).

taste, possibly smell, too; mood is of refreshment and pleasure

2. “Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky...I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration” (Emerson 373).

Touch of cold, (or possibly hearing crunch of snow); mood is of great pleasure and excitement

3. “The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances . . . is then a trifle and a disturbance” (Emerson 373).

hearing; the mood is other-worldly, of being out of one’s ordinary identity, or separate

4. “To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it” (Emerson 374).

touch; mood is of an inner burden and sorrow

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