Emerson and Thoreau

why is there a dark tone in experience

"there are moods in which we court suffering in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth" Emerson is dealing with unexpected death of young son who died of disease Emerson is processing this as father and thinker father dealing with grief "the only thing grief has taught me" see him moving from grief to understanding he really can't do that the tone has changed the darkness really speaks to the way grief has affected him doubts optimism he had earlier towards transcendentalism exactly the thing that early Emerson pushed away (title is experience) the shadow of his son's death influences his thoughts alpha and omega - point and counterpoint as he rehearses his idea, isn't fulfilling shows the edge of transcendentalism fails to do what it is said to do can't explain away grief or this experience haunts and stays with him see the full range of Emerson's thoughts

what are the traits of self-reliance

1-youth-infatuation with childhood and childlike youth culture and why we want to model ourselves on it youth culture=human nature -nonchalant, independent, irresponsible, genuine they don't worry about your feelings, tell truth admires the youth 2-non-conformity not basing life choices on social script vitally important to being self-reliant you won't be a man if not non-conformist recounts anecdote about Emerson saying I don't really believe in traditions (finds them negative) and then imagines friend that those may be from the devil not god and his response tells no law can be sacred to me other than the law of my nature MORAL RELEVATISM subjective not objectively true you have to decide what is in your own constitution (right and wrong) you are at your core a good person all corruption is a product in the way the self is being controlled by society at your core you know the right thing to do 3- inconsistency "with consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do" "to be great is to be misunderstood" being consistent like being a thinker frozen in place doesn't allow organic growth inconsistency is organic growth because you change over time, think differently 4. becoming becoming rather than to be self is always in flux, in transition self never "is" but only "becomes" to be self-reliant you can't repose, need to keep moving "you are most alive in your moment of transition" not when you hit the target, not when you take a breath when you are pushing yourself you are the most pure form of yourself once you stop growing, you die

who did Emerson deliver the American Scholar speech to

Harvard students 1837

Emerson or thoreau resistance and remaking (transcendentalism)

Emerson

who was called the necessary angel of concord

Emerson

who had an empowered sense of the individual Emerson or Franklin

Emerson you have the abilities within you

who said that everything that isn't my soul is nature

Emerson (nature)

who said these quotes "with consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do" "to be great is to be misunderstood"

Emerson -self-reliant newton, copernicus, Jesus, Galileo all people who were misunderstood that were leaders in the world that challenged the system

what is being used by the author (what technique) "A third use of Nature subserves to man is that of Language. Nature is the vehicle of thought, and in a simple, double, and threefold degree. 1. Words are signs of natural facts 2. Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts 3.Nature is the symbol of spirit"

Emerson in nature using syllogism syllogism is have minor premise, minor premise, major premise etymology of words the language we use is a fossil see how words are related to nature/vision language needs to recapture the power of past language that was more connected to nature connecting natural world and language

what does this contextualize "the charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some 20 or 30 farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. 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 land-deeds give them no title"

Emerson-nature contextualizes what Emerson is writing against when looking out at concord, he sees a division this farm, that farm industrialization -pushing back against it makes you compartmentalize yourself turning people into machine soul-crushing idea transcendentalism reacts to the self-diminishing ideals of industrialization

who said this "man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar and statesman, and producer, and soldier. In the divided or social state these functions are parceled out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst each other performs his"

Emerson- American scholar critique of culture, critique of education system sets up in the critique a dyad between two versions of yourself values of these two selves "he is all" non-social state you are an individual man has one job among many but you don't have a profession -contrasts that with social state "divided or social state" man becomes his job you are a scholar, you are a priest etc why is Emerson talking about this -sees education system as being a form or instrument for socializations also a problem for him because in these institutions we move from non-social state of individuals to being socialized self this is why Harvard wasn't happy after this oration

who wrote this is bookworm positive or negative "the sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, always slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Books are written on it by thinkers, not by Man Thinking, by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm"

Emerson- American scholar educational system that is built on recitation -"bookworm" taking a swipe at pedagogical someone who recites to recite negative this is like the thinker

who said this "the state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk and strut about so many walking monsters, a good finger, a neck a stomach, an elbow, but never a man"

Emerson- American scholar metaphor -amputation "state of society" is equivalent to being amputated lends to gothic imagining amputated body in society rather than whole what he wants to re achieve is a whole body the idea of a major is the beginning of division education system makes you divide, you become your job socialization is evil

"where do we find ourselves?" where is from

Emerson- experience farthest from tone of self-reliance that question is so different from the rest of his writing this is not declarative like rest of his writing doubt, uncertainty

Emerson or thoreau- transparent eye ball

Emerson- nature

what is the author saying in this quote "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE. In enumerating the values of nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses; ---- in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a coal, a statue, a picture. But his operations taken together are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching and washing, that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result."

Emerson- nature everything that isn't my soul is nature including my body Nature- soul outside - body inside

what is the significance of hieroglyphics in this quote "Undoubtedly, we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man's condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put."

Emerson- nature hieroglyphics- secrets just need to be decoded not that you don't have them but just need to be decoded- idealism you have all the success in you, you just need to unlock it empowered sense of individual contrast with Ben Franklin - blank slate trying to fill yourself up -vegetarian, his strict schedule

who says this and is it a good or bad thing "our age is retrospective"

Emerson- nature 1836 for Emerson being retrospective is a cardinal sin

why is this the last straw for Harvard president "If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it"

Emerson-american scholar age of Revolution capitalization didn't;t say "Age of Revolution" said "age of Revolution" little a shows its less specific any age can be a potential age of Revolution any age can be just like the Revolutionary past today is the idea where old and new are side by side and they stand at the now every moment is a potential age of revolution alot of people have fear and hope for future but rather than be paralyzed, this time is a good time if you know what to do with it -making a case for the present every single second has the potential for you to revolutionize your thinking, relation to educational system, how you read value of present

what is so important about "man thinking" "in this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking"

Emerson-american scholar man thinking is positive the thinker is negative man thinking

who wrote this Standing on the bare ground,-my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball"

Emerson-nature

who thought that you are the product of the past and that you can't escape it

Hawthorne

according to this quote what is the most important thing to the author "the foregoing generations beheld Hod and nature face to face; we, through their eyes"

Nature-Emerson eyes-sigh-vision are all synonymous sight is the most important thing

what does thoreau find sublime that everyone else would find anxious

not being able to tell the difference between the sky and pond at night

what do Emerson's lectures sound like

sermons

what does Emerson push back against

industrialization -pushing back against it makes you compartmentalize yourself turning people into machine soul-crushing idea transcendentalism reacts to the self-diminishing ideals of industrialization

who takes terms we know and inverts them

Thoreau takes terms we know and invert them making it seem strange or uncommon sojourner- question HDT- play on words silvery-sojourner converting a term you think you know

Thoreau _______ Emerson_______ connecting to real world abstraction

Thoreau-connecting to real world Emerson- abstraction

what does the transparent eyeball represent

abstraction metaphor what is the transparent eyeball? ties into notion of vision and sight Emersonian ideal "see all, penetrative vision" saying- I am nothing his own body evaporates Passive- sees everything but doesn't do anything letting things flow through you social categories become clear social labeling- friend, master, servant Emerson sees these as damaging to be socialized is to be blinded to your self-worth

where was the Shot heard round the world located

at Emerson's old manse

what is thoreau warning against "However, if one designs to construct a dwelling house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse; a labrynth without a clew, a museum, an almshouse, a prison or a splendid mausoleum instead"

be careful with the things you known as home and make sure they don't turn into those things becoming all these things it wasn't meant to be

what is this a cheat sheet to "Who cooks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence"

cheat sheet to transcendentalism Emerson nature 4 things- hypertext 1. looks- vision 2. flux- uncertainty/organice (up in the air) 3. children- celebrates child- not as childish but as seeing things in unscripted way haven't been socialized yet "fresh" not aware of history who throws stones? children so 4. circles- rather than lines not a linear argument like a-b-c but in a circle

what does the author do in this quote "Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson's; after those wild, free days on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard's culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow's hearthstone—it was time, at length, that I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite."

clearing space from transcendentalism, offer you something new---- romance custom house preface

where is the epicenter of transcendentalism

concord Massachusetts

according to thoreau what is transcendentalism really about

connecting to natural world

what is thoreau talking about "if it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the conditions of man, and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages, it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run"

cost not to think abstract like costs but instead how much of my life will I have to spend if a coke is a dollar and I get 10 an hour, the coke is worth 6 minutes of my life

how does Emerson start off nature and American scholar

critiques

what is Emerson critiquing in American scholar

culture and education system

where is this from and what is the significance of "in most me" "Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or his own."

custom house preface "in most me" -idea that there is depth to self "I" is deeper, unknown wood-decay of wood past of Salem is glorious current Salem is dilapidated wood=broken vs. brick= custom house (customs for sailing) today

Emerson or thoreau soul is distinct from nature tries to bridge the gap/ transcend the alienation we encounter in our lives

emerson hence the name of transcendentalism Kantian ethics

what does this show "Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers all day in the boughs of the fir-tree"

emersonian vision is clouded usually vision is how he understands the world things are obscure Emerson- experience

what is the least emersonian essay

experience

"nature does not like to be observed and likes that we should be her fools and playmates" "nature as we know her, is no saint" where are these quotes from

experience Emerson dark tone about nature nature before was an amazing thing where you escape confines of society nature is now hostile and not accommodating nature resists transcendental vision nature likes to play games with us

did Emerson feel like we should memorialize founding fathers or need to fill the gap

fill the gap hard to live after a great generation generation before Emerson was the founding fathers need to celebrate all we have we are enough don't need to keep memorializing the founding fathers

why is there a circular form to Emerson's writing

he comes back to the same idea of nature over and over

what is the problem with emerson

if we aren't supposed to recite what we read from different writers than what do we do with books, even a book by Emerson does it equally apply to him?

what question is he answering "This is bad; this is worse than it seems, Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end which all means got to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world of value is the active soul, the soul, free, sovereign, active" "Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read god directly, the hour is too precocious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they must, when the soul teeth not, when the sun is hid and the stars withdraw their shining, we repair to the lamps which were killed by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again, where the dawn is. We hear, that we many speak"

if we aren't supposed to recite what we read from different writers than what do we do with books, even a book by Emerson does it equally apply to him? What does it mean to read something actively instead of passively "The one thing in the world of value is the active soul" to read transcendentally need to be inspired warped out of your orbit if a book doesn't do that then don't read it new way of thinking President of Harvard told him not to come back second quote "books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read god directly, the hour is too precocious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings." reading books is secondary to experiencing life books are only for when you are in down time if you can experience the natural world directly then you really don't need to read books are for when the sun is down this is him commenting on the men who spend their time in libraries INSTEAD of reading the world around you which he values more

what are the problems with self-reliance

imagines a scenario where someone says to him you may be self-reliant but what about the poor ugly response- are they my poor? interest in anyone else is not there in his defense, he said he would gladly give money to people that are like him railing against charity culture (came into existence in 19th century as aftereffect of industrialization) suddenly need relief societies essentially saying if poor were more self-reliant, they wouldn't need his charity cost of him trumpeting his self-reliance- hostility to others and this is a weakness of self-reliance negative towards society- refuses to help others

where is the author happiest living "This old town of Salem—my native place, though I have dwelt much away from it both in boyhood and maturer years—possesses, or did possess, a hold on my affection, the force of which I have never realized during my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far as its physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural beauty—its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame—its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the alms-house at the other—such being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. And yet, though invariably happiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling for Old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be content to call affection. The sentiment is probably assignable to the deep and aged roots which my family has stuck into the soil."

in places other than Salem custom house preface despite this , have some connection salem history with transcendentalists can be avoided history with Hawthorne, even if tainted or corrupt- can't escape it you are the product of the past you will always be a Hawthorne no matter where you live choices made in past are still relevant today

with Emerson transcendentalism is a reaction to

industrialization landscape around us is all divided up reacting negatively to think about it in terms of landscape, no one owns the landscape the eye Can integrate the entire landscape- symbol of transcendentalism blending things together is a positive to him

why is the thinker negative

man becomes his action, his job inorganic fixed static actions have become passive victim of society-statue-cemented in place

why is man thinking positive

man remains whole but action changes organic changeable flux noun-adjective verb=action to think man drinking, man walking, man thinking actions come off of that hub

does Emerson support social labeling

no sees them as damaging to be socialized is to be blinded to your self-worth

according to Emerson what is one trait that is vitally important to be self-reliant

non-conformity not basing life choices on social script recounts anecdote about Emerson saying I don't really believe in traditions (finds them negative) and then imagines friend that those may be from the devil not god and his response tells no law can be sacred to me other than the law of my nature MORAL RELEVATISM subjective not objectively true you have to decide what is in your own constitution (right and wrong) you are at your core a good person all corruption is a product in the way the self is being controlled by society at your core you know the right thing to do you can trust your mind, inside self and if you do you will do the right thing

what does this set up the SL to be "If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly—making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility—is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests."

novel vs. romance novel- noontide, visibility, clear (characters, sequence of events), sun, familiar, near at hand, actual romance- ambiguous, shadowing, fuzzier/less clear, moonlight, strangeness, remoteness, actual-imaginary "There is the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs, with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the book-case; the picture on the wall—all these details, so completely seen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect. Nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby. A child's shoe; the doll, seated in her little wicker carriage; the hobby-horse—whatever, in a word, has been used or played with during the day is now invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though still almost as vividly present as by daylight. Thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet,"

does Emerson believe past language or present language is more connected to nature

past language and need to get back to there

is being lost seen as positive or negative "Often in a snow storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and yet find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village. Though he knows that he has travelled it a thousand times, he cannot recognize a feature in it, but it is as strange to him as if it were a road in Siberia. By night, of course, the perplexity is infinitely greater. In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round, for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature. Every man has to learn the points of compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations"

postive the bean field- thoreau when the familiar becomes unfamiliar being lost makes you reorient yourself

what were two main themes of Emerson

resistance remaking

what is Emersons most famous essay

self-reliance -most emersonian

what does this show "we are like millers on the lower levels of a stream, when the factories above them have exhausted the water. We too fancy that the upper people must have raised their dams"

sense of exhaustion waiting for water to power the wheel but it isn't going much darker tone to emerson Emerson- experience why does he feel this way

what does thoreau talk about in an interesting way "I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself"

slavery economy southern slavery- chattel slavery bad northern slavery- wage slavery worse "slave driver of yourself"- worst wage slavery (live to work, work to live) if you are in southern slavery its bad but at least you know you're a slave difference with northern slavery you think you have freedom but you don't you think you know what slavery means but is inventing it to make you think what does it mean to be a slave?

what is thoreau defining "Few phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the forms which thawing sand and clay assume in flowing down the sides of a deep cut on the railroad through which I passed on my way to the village, a phenomenon not very common on so large a scale, though the number of freshly exposed banks of the right material must have been greatly multiplied since railroads were invented. The material was sand of every degree of fineness and of various rich colors, commonly mixed with a little clay. When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a thawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes like lava, sometimes bursting out through the snow and overflowing it where no sand was to be seen before. Innumerable little streams overlap and interlace one with another, exhibiting a sort of hybrid product, which obeys half way the law of currents, and half way that of vegetation. As it flows it takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines, making heaps of pulpy sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, as you look down on them, the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some lichens; or you are reminded of coral, of leopard's paws or birds' feet, of brains or lungs or bowels, and excrements of all kinds. It is a truly grotesque vegetation, whose forms and color we see imitated in bronze, a sort of architectural foliage more ancient and typical than acanthus, chiccory, ivy, vine, or any vegetable leaves; destined perhaps, under some circumstances, to become a puzzle to future geologists."

spring spring=thaw "how" :hybrid" "imbricated" flux- the moment when things become unstuck

what is the significance of 'tonic wilderness' "Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness,—to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture feeding on the carrion which disgusts and disheartens us and deriving health and strength from the repast. There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence like pulp,—tadpoles which herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped."

spring-thoreau refreshingness of nature the muddyness/grossness of it active relationship- need to see our own limits transgressed

what is the philosophical syllogism in nature

words=natural facts then natural facts=spiritual facts therefore natural language is a way to represent the spiritual looks at edimological language we used for abstract things all of these have their origins in natural world (sensible things) wants you to go back to natural meaning his text is model for natural meaning grounds the abstract in things you know Emerson speaks aphoristically every chunk is independent, can be quoted (his style) he is organic, talks in a natural way eyesight and vision, flux=organic (things change and move over time) just like his organic style not to live in past with rev. war, throwing a stone= childlike not socialized childlike not childish and circles-not linear his ideas aren't linear but circular, circles back to ideas

significance of quote "It is a ridiculous demand which England and America make, that you shall speak so that they can understand you. Neither men nor toad-stools grow so. As if that were important, and there were not enough to understand you without them. As if Nature could support but one order of understandings, could not sustain birds as well as quadrupeds, flying as well as creeping things, and hush and who, which Bright can understand, were the best English. As if there were safety in stupidity alone. I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extra-vagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced. Extra vagance! it depends on how you are yarded. The migrating buffalo, which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not extravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail, leaps the cow-yard fence, and runs after her calf, in milking time."

spring-thoreau extra/vagance outside. wander to wander outside the normal bounds "may not wonder far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily experience" buffalo vs. cow cow is more extravagant when kicks over pail, fence and wandering usually would say Buffalo is more extravagant

what is being described "Thus it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all the operations of Nature. The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf. What Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may turn over a new leaf at last? This phenomenon is more exhilarating to me than the luxuriance and fertility of vineyards. True, it is somewhat excrementitious in its character, and there is no end to the heaps of liver lights and bowels, as if the globe were turned wrong side outward; but this suggests at least that Nature has some bowels, and there again is mother of humanity. This is the frost coming out of the ground; this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side. Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic. These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is "in full blast" within. The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic."

spring-thoreau talking about the dirt with runoff because of snow melting= grotesque excrement talking about/celebrating the leftover stuff (shit) Mother Nature child birth you don't get the beautiful baby without the grotesque moments leading up to it There is nothing inorganic. These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is "in full blast" within. The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,—not a fossil earth, but a living earth; compared with whose great central life all animal and vegetable life is merely parasitic." -once you write something down its dead how can you make it living Walden is "living" -you read it one way but there is another you do this when your work is uncertain

_______________ is minor premise, minor premise, major premise

syllogism Emerson nature

what does the eagle represent "Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunder-bolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows."

the US custom house preface watches eagle sits over the entry point of US watches-gazes the way. it maintains control-surveillance talking about the US today

who is being described "The father of the Custom-House—the patriarch, not only of this little squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, of the respectable body of tide-waiters all over the United States—was a certain permanent Inspector. He might truly be termed a legitimate son of the revenue system, dyed in the wool, or rather born in the purple; since his sire, a Revolutionary colonel, and formerly collector of the port, had created an office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early ages which few living men can now remember. This Inspector, when I first knew him, was a man of fourscore years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-green that you would be likely to discover in a lifetime's search. With his florid cheek, his compact figure smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed—not young, indeed—but a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal—and there was very little else to look at—he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that extreme age, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at or conceived of. The careless security of his life in the Custom-House, on a regular income, and with but slight and infrequent apprehensions of removal, had no doubt contributed to make time pass lightly over him. The original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no power of thought no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities: nothing, in short, but a few commonplace instincts, which, aided by the cheerful temper which grew inevitably out of his physical well-being, did duty very respectably, and to general acceptance, in lieu of a heart." "As he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table. His reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savour of pig or turkey under one's very nostrils. There were flavours on his palate that had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. I have heard him smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himself, had long been food for worms. It was marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals were continually rising up before him—not in anger or retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation, and seeking to repudiate an endless series of enjoyment. at once shadowy and sensual,"

the inspector in the custom house preface inspector lives on food of past "new dish"

is American transcendentalism the idea of focusing on the now or the past

the now need to move beyond the past

who trashed humans by saying that ants have more principle we think we're better but should recognize that we are as brutish as the ants/animals

thoreau

what does this quote show about economy "one young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me that he thought he should live as I did, if he had the means. I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead"

thoreau -it is not a how to guide "do not imitate me" I was as many pov as possible

who lists out all the costs to build a house and only spends $28.12

thoreau shanty boards, refuse shingles for roof building a house out of what you threw away

does Hawthorne have a relationship with transcendentalism

yes Hawthorne lived in same house Emerson did Hawthorne's grandfather was the judge with Salem witch trials -infamous name because related to him added "w" to last name to distance himself

according to Emerson is being socialized problematic

yes social= divided/alienated American scholar oration

what are the traits of self-reliance from emerson

youth non-conformist inconsistency becoming all these traits together shows how you can move toward being self-reliant

what is the author talking about "The first depends more on the light, and follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they appear blue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great distance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are sometimes of a dark slate-color. The sea, however, is said to be blue one day and green another without any perceptible change in the atmosphere. I have seen our river, when, the landscape being covered with snow, both water and ice were almost as green as grass. Some consider blue "to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or solid." But, looking directly down into our waters from a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors. Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view."

thoreau talking about Walden pond bean field walden- blue and green this isn't a binary system its both how can something be both blue and green? both/and vs. either/or

who said this "Sometimes, after staying in a village parlor till the family had all retired, I have returned to the woods, and, partly with a view to the next day's dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a boat by moonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from time to time, the creaking note of some unknown bird close at hand. These experiences were very memorable and valuable to me -- anchored in forty feet of water, and twenty or thirty rods from the shore, surrounded sometimes by thousands of small perch and shiners, dimpling the surface with their tails in the moonlight, and communicating by a long flaxen line with mysterious nocturnal fishes which had their dwelling forty feet below, or sometimes dragging sixty feet of line about the pond as I drifted in the gentle night breeze, now and then feeling a slight vibration along it, indicative of some life prowling about its extremity, of dull uncertain blundering purpose there, and slow to make up its mind. At length you slowly raise, pulling hand over hand, some horned pout squeaking and squirming to the upper air. It was very queer, especially in dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal themes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if I might next cast my line upward into the air, as well as downward into this element, which was scarcely more dense. Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook."

thoreau- bean field throw his line up in the air and it lands in the water not being able to tell difference between sky and water when fishing at night for thoreau sublimity for everyone else anxiety

who is talking about ants and what is happening "I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other." "In the mean while there came along a single red ant on the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus." "And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick,—"Fire! for God's sake fire!"—and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least."

thoreau- brute neighbors they are having a battle sounds ridiculous second quote ants become epic - achilles and Patroclus third quote revolutionary war bet you they're fighting on principle that is better than a 3 cent tax Thoreau is essentially trashing humans and saying the ants have more principle brute neighbors -people who declare war -ants fighting against each other we think we're better but we should recognize that we are as brutish as the ants/animals

what is the oxymoron "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation disconfirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things"

thoreau- economy oxymoron- quiet desperation the world he sees of machines is full of quiet desperation

who wrote this "when I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only"

thoreau- economy opening walden vs opening nature walden- almost locate where he lives practical, tactile nature transparent eyeball abstraction

who said this "at present I am a sojourner in civilized life again"

thoreau- economy sojourner - traveler, visitor, tourist inverting- I felt like an outsider in my own home

who experiences this savageness in the woods "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" "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"

thoreau- higher laws higher laws savage-body and civilized- mind ability to eat a woodchuck raw and ability to have higher thinking

who is having this interaction with the loon "As I was paddling along the north shore one very calm October afternoon, for such days especially they settle on to the lakes, like the milkweed down, having looked in vain over the pond for a loon, suddenly one, sailing out from the shore toward the middle a few rods in front of me, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself. I pursued with a paddle and he dived, but when he came up I was nearer than before. He dived again, but I miscalculated the direction he would take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this time, for I had helped to widen the interval; and again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason than before. He manœuvred so cunningly that I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Each time, when he came to the surface, turning his head this way and that, he cooly surveyed the water and the land, and apparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the widest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from the boat. It was surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into execution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could not be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain, I was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game, played on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly your adversary's checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem is to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having apparently passed directly under the boat."

thoreau- house warming loon-all about failure can't catch the loon imagine playing checks but they play 3d checkers while you're on the board loon=wildness its impossible for him civilization is far left (negative in chapter 1) cabin is middle ground (wilderness) loon is far right (represents wilderness/nature) you can't capture it because you are made differently can't be either in civilization or loon where does it leave us? middleground

what image does this show "Early in the morning, while all things are crisp with frost, men come with fishing reels and slender lunch, and let down their fine lines through the snowy field to take pickerel and perch; wild men, who instinctively follow other fashions and trust other authorities than their townsmen, and by their goings and comings stitch towns together in parts where else they would be ripped. They sit and eat their luncheon in stout fear-naughts on the dry oak leaves on the shore, as wise in natural lore as the citizen is in artificial. They never consulted with books, and know and can tell much less than they have done. The things which they practise are said not yet to be known. Here is one fishing for pickerel with grown perch for bait. You look into his pail with wonder as into a summer pond, as if he kept summer locked up at home, or knew where she had retreated. How, pray, did he get these in mid-winter? O, he got worms out of rotten logs since the ground froze, and so he caught them. His life itself passes deeper in Nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see Nature carried out in him. The perch swallows the grub-worm, the pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisher-man swallows the pickerel; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are filled."

thoreau- pond in the winter worm-small fish- big fish- person

what is happening "thus, also, you pass from the lumpish grub in the earth to the airy and fluttering butterfly. The very globe continually transcends and translates itself, and becomes winged in its orbit. Even use begins with delicate crystal leaves, as if it had flowed into moulds which the fronds of water plants have impressed on the watery mirror. The whole tree itself is but one lead, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils"

thoreau- spring the leaf becomes the tree transcend our sense of being hierarchal better than other beings really about connecting to natural world----- transcendentalism unlike Emerson with the abstract

what are the different versions of walden that are being described "But I can assure my readers that Walden has a reasonably tight bottom at a not unreasonable, though at an unusual, depth. I fathomed it easily with a cod-line and a stone weighing about a pound and a half, and could tell accurately when the stone left the bottom, by having to pull so much harder before the water got underneath to help me. The greatest depth was exactly one hundred and two feet; to which may be added the five feet which it has risen since, making one hundred and seven. This is a remarkable depth for so small an area; yet not an inch of it can be spared by the imagination. What if all ponds were shallow? Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the infinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless."

thoreau- the pond in winter walden=symbol vs walden as the text literal (the pond) literary making it ---- instead walden=walden

what is man compared to in this quote "Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manifest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has not time to be any thing but a machine"

thoreau-economy man=machine response to industrialization and modernization

what is the emersonian sublime/ideal

transparent eyeball (nature) passive-world comes through him like a breeze total, penetrative vision-sees everything erased body-almost invisible eyeball, body disappears erased social identity-when you erase body you erase connection to other beings HOSTILITY TO SOCIALIZED SENSE OF IDENTITY

what is describing the value of "action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he is not yet man" "Life is our dictionary.... this is the way to learn grammar. Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the workyard made" "I hear therefore with joy whatever is beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labor to every citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade, for learned as well as for unlearned hands"

value of labor to the institution of education -action not thinking but action -field and workyard are almost more important make something labor is vital part of the education system if you labor you are getting education emphasize that even though its common sense for today it has revolutionized education is in library and in doing things with your hands can't simply be the replication of the ideas of books not just experiencing the world intellectually

walden opening is _________ nature opening is _________ practical abstract

walden- practical nature- abstract

why does Emerson have a crisis of faith and what does he do because of it

when his wife dies in 1831 leaves US and goes to Paris he is blown away by natural species in the botanical gardens leads to him saying he will be a naturalist