Ralph Waldo EmersonPoet, author, essayist, philosopher

Emerson’s Life…• born 1803• Father was a minister• Research did not mention his mother• Father died when Emerson was 8• Emerson lived with Aunt Mary Moody• Attended Harvard • 1st wife died at age 20• Traveled to Europe and began studying Transcendentalism• Became a minister for a short time• Married again• Lost a son when the boy was only 5

Any of the above things could have influenced Emerson’s poetry, but the most common theme I’ve found in his poetry

is his belief in the Transcendental philosophy.

Transcendentalism Defined…

• Before any concept can be intellectualized, it must first be experienced by the senses

• Relies on direct feeling – intuition – which is insight, feelings, not based on any scientific proof; a direct perception of truth

• Being in nature is being with God – all humans have the ability to become gods

• Moving towards godliness• Central concept is self-reliance• God breathes through nature and man• God is in everything, therefore man can become God• Man has ideas that come from direct revelation from

God, not the 5 senses or science

The RhodoraOn being asked, whence is the flower.

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals fallen in the poolMade the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee whyThis charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask; I never knew;But in my simple ignorance suppose

The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.

Lines Explained…The first highlighted words, “if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for Being” show us that reliance is in oneself – beauty is its own excuse for Being – the capitalization of the word Being shows its importance in the poem

We can see Emerson’s belief in self-reliance being an important aspect of his beliefs by the last set of words in the previous poem, “the self-same power that brought me there, brought you.” This shows the equality that was felt by transcendentalists at the time. It didn’t matter whether people were male or female or what color people’s skin was, we are all created equally.

The Apology…

Think me not unkind and rude,That I walk alone in grove and

glen;I go to the god of the woodTo fetch his word to men.

Tax not my sloth that IFold my arms beside the brook;Each cloud that floated in the

skyWrites a letter in my book.

Chide me not, laborious band,For the idle flowers I brought;

Every aster in my handGoes home loaded with a

thought.

There was never mystery,But 'tis figured in the

flowers,Was never secret history,

But birds tell it in the bowers.

One harvest from thy fieldHomeward brought the oxen

strong;A second crop thine acres

yield,Which I gather in a song.

Lines Explained…

In this poem, the lines are apparent in their connection to transcendentalism.

Think me not unkind and rude,That I walk alone in grove and glen;

I go to the god of the woodTo fetch his word to men.

In these lines, we can see that the speaker is going to the woods to commune with God. Since transcendentalists believed that being in nature was a way to communicate with self, and thus God, we can see this in the words used, “I go to the god of the wood to fetch his word to men.”

Berrying…

"May be true what I had heard,Earth's a howling wilderness

Truculent with fraud and force,"Said I, strolling through the pastures,

And along the riverside.Caught among the blackberry vines,

Feeding on the Ethiops sweet,Pleasant fancies overtook me:

I said, "What influence me preferredElect to dreams thus beautiful?"

The vines replied, "And didst thou deem

No wisdom to our berries went?"

Lines Explained…

This entire poem personifies the forest and the things in it. The narrator is communicating with the vines and flowers. Creating the poem in this

matter emphasizes the belief that we all return to nature and come from nature. Giving the

elements in the forest human qualities shows the transcendental belief that we are all connected

together.

The River…And I behold once more

My old familiar haunts; here the blue river,The same blue wonder that my infant eye

Admired, sage doubting whence the traveller came,--Whence brought his sunny bubbles ere he washed

The fragrant flag-roots in my father's fields,And where thereafter in the world he went.Look, here he is, unaltered, save that now

He hath broke his banks and flooded all the valesWith his redundant waves.

Here is the rock where, yet a simple child,I caught with bended pin my earliest fish,

Much triumphing,--and these the fieldsOver whose flowers I chased the butterfly,

A blooming hunter of a fairy fine.And hark! where overhead the ancient crows

Hold their sour conversation in the sky:--These are the same, but I am not the same,

But wiser than I was, and wise enoughNot to regret the changes, tho' they cost

Me many a sigh. Oh, call not Nature dumb;

The River cont…These trees and stones are audible to me,

These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,I understand their faery syllables,

And all their sad significance. The wind,That rustles down the well-known forest road--

It hath a sound more eloquent than speech.The stream, the trees, the grass, the sighing wind,

All of them utter sounds of 'monishmentAnd grave parental love.

They are not of our race, they seem to say,And yet have knowledge of our moral race,

And somewhat of majestic sympathy,Something of pity for the puny clay,

That holds and boasts the immeasurable mind.I feel as I were welcome to these treesAfter long months of weary wandering,

Acknowledged by their hospitable boughs;They know me as their son, for side by side,

They were coeval with my ancestors,Adorned with them my country's primitive times,And soon may give my dust their funeral shade.

Lines Explained…

The first lines tell the reader not to disrespect nature – to do so would be to disrespect God. The narrator feels in tune with the trees and stones and flowers,

“These trees and stones are audible to me,These idle flowers, that tremble in the wind,

I understand their faery syllables,And all their sad significance”

The narrator understands the importance of these things. They shelter and protect and may one day

“And soon may give my dust their funeral shade”

Gnothi Seauton I…This next poem is a lengthy poem with 11 sections total. I have chosen 3 of the sections to discuss. The poem in its entirety is a good poem to show what transcendentalism beliefs were. It explains in poetic form what the philosophy embraced. This is why I have chosen it for the last poem.

IIf thou canst bear

Strong meat of simple truth If thou durst my words compare

With what thou thinkest in my soul’s free youth, Then take this fact unto thy soul,-----

God dwells in thee. It is no metaphor nor parable,

It is unknown to thousands, and to thee; Yet there is God.

Gnothi Seauton IV…IV

Give up to thy soul----- Let it have its way-----

It is, I tell thee, God himself, The selfsame One that rules the Whole,

Tho’ he speaks thro’ thee with a stifled voice, And looks through thee, shorn of his beams.

But if thou listen to his voice, If thou obey the royal thought, It will grow clearer to thine ear,

More glorious to thine eye. The clouds will burst that veil him now

And thou shalt see the Lord.

Gnothi Seauton XI…

XI Shall I ask wealth or power of God, who gave

An image of himself to be my soul? As well might swilling ocean ask a wave,

Or the starred firmament a dying coal,----- For that which is in me lives in the whole.

Transcendentalism Carries Throughout…

Emerson continued on with his beliefs throughout his life. He died from pneumonia in 1882.