For this first part of the school year, we have started this English 372 class by discussing poetry by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Lewis Caroll. A major theme that we discussed was that of nature. Nature can be anything from how someone feels, the timing of a situation, the simple facet of the trees and rolling hills that surround us.
In class we discussed how nature in images can have a different meaning than words in a text. We came up with this:
NATURE:
- the idea of reason
- man becomes useful through
- nature is the closest thing to God
- it is the drive to our existence
- knowledge + reason
- nature can be the greatest teacher
The last one on this list appeals to me the most. Nature can teach a human being not only about the way things in life happen, but it can also teach someone about themselves. Nature is a lot like a human; there is the creation of new life, growth during life, and in the end death. Standing in the middle of a valley of mountains can have such a sublime affect on a persons being. For me it shows that we as human beings are not on top of the world. As big as we think we are, there are still parts of the world that will forever conquer us.
Another thing that nature offers us is, as Emerson puts it, “to go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.” This to me means that in order to fully relax, a man/woman needs to do more than just take a day off of work. If he escapes into nature, he will be fully calm and over taken with a serenity that only nature provides.
In your blog post you talked a lot about how nature and humans are similar in their existence. I agree with that claim for the most part, however I don't know if humans and nature are alike in the sense of death. The reason for that is, while humans inevitably die, nature as a whole and even some individual aspects of nature are comparatively everlasting. --Cory and Stephanie
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your analogy of nature to human life. Not in nature as a whole, but as single entities, trees, plants, and wildlife all have a life-cycle; birth, life then death. In this way, I see nature as a great teacher. We are shown how to live a full life then die gracefully. This also ties into reason because of the things we learn in nature's lessons. From there, a conclusion can be drawn to the idea of God or a higher power. The connection with the forest is a guidance to this higher power, which is another belief in the romantic era. I really like how all your ideas tie together in such a complex web! -Savannah Tiedeman
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