Transcendentalists

TASK 1
Nature – Ralph Waldo

I really liked this piece of writing because I feel like it’s really reaching out to me in the way that nature does. The poem states, “In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs though the man, in spite of real sorrows”. This means a lot to me because I feel exactly what it’s talking about. When the sun is shining, after a rainy day or even if it’s just another sunny day, it brightens up my mood and makes me feel so good. It really is like a jolt of “wild delight” runs through my body the whole day. I think that’s why I liked the poem so much. It expresses nature the way that it should be. Not a place out in the middle of nowhere that we haven’t claimed yet, but as the beautiful unclaimed and serine land that it is. That right there is truly beautiful to me.
This poem gives off a special kind of vibe to me as well. It says that “In the wilderness I find something more dear and connate than in the streets of villages”. It’s just so true what the poet is saying here. You can’t find anything more pure, unclaimed, and truly beautiful than being out in the wilderness. It’s a totally different world than ANYWHERE else that you could be. In all, I loved this poem because I could truly relate to what they were saying about nature and how it affects people.

This poem is an exact example of a transcendentalist piece of work, which is the reason it was chosen for us to read for our transcendentalist project, obviously. The essay states, “The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and Earth becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows”. This quote is saying how a man of nature is a peace and connected by mind and soul and that this man of nature had held onto his pureness from his child or “infancy” stage. The transcendentalists believed that everyone was pure and didn’t believe in original sin. It’s saying that god is in nature, and that a man of nature makes it his life, day in and day out with god by his side in his creation. These words are those of a transcendentalist because they believe that god communicates to man through nature, so when this man in the poem is saying how a wild delight runs through him regardless of real sorrows, they’re saying that god is with him in his nature; through his sorrows.

Self-Reliance
This poem was a little hard for men to read at first, but after reading it aloud…twice…I got a better grip on what it was trying to say. From my point of view, the author was trying to let us understand that when we step into the world, society, we are almost ashamed of what we represent. We feel like it doesn’t really match with the world, and so (sometimes subconsciously) we don’t put forth our whole effort in what we do. The essay states, “We but half express our self, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents”. That says to me that the author wants to let us know that we are capable of being “divine” or that our thoughts about what we stand for are capable of being divine”.
I actually liked this essay and the things that Waldo was trying to say to his readers. A message that stuck out to me is, “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide”. This is really an important thing for us to learn, because you of course can admire or “envy” someone else’s work, but why not admire your own. When he says that imitation is suicide, I got out of it that you need not create someone else’s creation, but you should be original. All of this just goes back to what he was saying earlier about how when we step into society not matching everyone else in the world. The most beautiful thing is something that is your own created with your best and truest efforts. That right there is the all together summary of what the essay meant to me, which made it harsh in a way, but also an eye opener if you read it with an open mind.

Like the transcendentalists, the essay, Self Reliance, is about individuality and doing your best and most genuine job at everything that you do. It states, “A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention; no hope”. This statement really exemplifies what Waldo was trying to get across. The transcendentalists believed in doing things that are done with your full heart and are truly your best. They also believed that all that doesn’t matter if you have said or done something for one reason or another that contradicts what you’ve accomplished. So like the transcendentalist believed, so did Waldo. The statement above says it all.



Resistance to Civil Government
Ralph Waldo has a very drawn out way of explaining things. He just keeps on ranting in words that I have to look up on dictionary.com. Although the above is true, the main ideas of his essays are very profound and I do admire most of them to the fullest extent. Resistance to Civil Government is, for the most part, a logical way of thinking. It states, “That government is best which governs not at all, and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have”. I really like this saying because he’s saying that basically the government is of no use to the people, and when the people are mature enough and at peace, they will get tat kind of government. When no one feels like they have to control other people because, they too, are ready for a non-governing government, it will be.
He continues this train of though about the government by talking about how the government is really un-useful and unstable. I think that it is true with what he is saying, such as, “It is excellent, we must all allow; yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got of out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the west. It does not educate”. I really like this because I feel like this government that we are so involved in and that is involved in us has many parts that are ridiculous and not of any use. The government just keeps us stuck and does not move us forwards or backwards. It keeps us in someone else’s views in the way we should live our lives. My name is NOT George Bush. Due to that very beautiful fact (I hate him by the way), why should I live my life the way he wants to live his?
The point that I was explaining above also draws me to pull out one last quote from Waldo’s essay. “This American government-what it is but a tradition, though a recent one…” is the statement that stuck out to me a really hit a nerve somewhere in my body. Answer me that very question, please. What is our government but a tradition? What is Valentines Day but a tradition? It is a pointless tradition. Unlike Valentines Day, government in our civilization is a lot more of a big deal. I do go by what Waldo says by saying that we, the people, are not ready for this new non-governing government (which is really no government at all), but even if we were, I think that people would be too scared to let this go. I think that people wouldn’t even consider having no government because it would be so big and so huge. But please, tell me, what would you do without a government? I would live my life by my standards. Everybody would live THEIR lives under their own standards. That’ll be the day.

This essay is a little hard for me to connect to transcendentalism, but I will try. There was, or course, the main point that was blatantly displayed. Transcendentalists didn’t believe in “institutions such as government” etc., and obviously neither does Waldo. I think that there is also another transcendentalist belief that could be connected to this essay. Transcendentalists believed in following your intuition because it is God telling you what you should do. Following the government is basically following someone else’s intuition, so therefore, if you feel something but it is against the law and you decide to follow the law, you are obviously not following your heart. You are not following God. A quote that explains this theory of the transcendentalist’s beliefs is, “Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” You kind of have to think outside the box, but he’s saying that if you feel one way about following the government (some one else’s intuition) but do not do anything, you will not get anything. Although, if you speak out and share your thoughts, you’re true and heart felt thoughts about the thing that governs you, then you are working towards what you want. Your are following your intuition and doing what’s right.


TASK 2
This man is definitely a transcendentalist. For one, while he was in nature, he said, “A man could lose himself up here. One wrong step, then you’ll be resting with god on the mountains”. Which implies that god is with him in the wilderness, just like the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo in his poem “Nature”. The main way that I really feel like this man is a transcendentalist is because he’s working really hard and doing the best that he can. He built this cabin out of straight logs, and he surviving out there in -50 degree weather. Like the transcendentalists, he used his mind and followed what he thought that he should do (and did it to the best of his ability. Because of that, you can definitely conclude that he believed that his mind was the most powerful thing. He didn’t need the minds of others or the technologies that we use today. All he needed was himself and his own hard work to survive.
In the video, it didn’t really say much about his faith in god, except for that short part about losing his step on the mountains. While I was reading, I did find something that he said about spiritual life. He said, “AS I CAME home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.” So although he talks about eating this animal raw, he also says that he longs and has respect for the spiritual side of him. He cherishes them both: the nature/wilderness side and also the devoted Christian.