A Book That Is So New And Fresh On The Literary Scene

Both Henry David Thoreau and Christopher McCandless ventured out into the woods to get away from the dreariness of everyday society and to find themselves. Only one lived to tell the tale. What was the fatal flaw of the man who didn’t continue on? The only way to find this is to analyze the differences and similarities between the two. McCandless, while embracing some of the same values as Thoreau, was ultimately a different man. While they led very contrasting lives in very distant times, both McCandless and Thoreau sought a type of freedom that can only be achieved when immersed in nature. Thoreau’s entitlement and cozy cabin in the woods is a far cry from McCandless’s constant struggle during his expedition, however, certain parallels

Author, Henry David Thoreau and Mary Oliver are both very passionate about nature and what it has to offer in life, as well as the symbolism behind nature and its creatures in their works of literature, in “Walden”, and “The House of Light”, Both authors discuss their views of nature and the beauty of the world that they want to make familiar to their audience. In this essay, I’ll provide my reasoning behind this statement.

In the essay, “A Literature of Place”, Barry Lopez expresses the importance of nature as it applies to human life. Through this he states that humans’ imagination are inspired by the scenery around them. Lopez revolves around a central perspective; Ancient american literature has always been rooted in nature. By acknowledging that modern human identity has been interpreted by nature, Lopez describes how the landscape of an area can shape the structure of the communities and how it can help with spiritual collapse. Nature writing has often been summarised by being one of the oldest threads in american literature. With our nation's aging one needs to reflect on their literary past; therefore, Lopez insists that we find our path to nature that

David Thoreau’s serious tone emphasizes the pleasure of living in the wilderness and observing nature. Thoreau’s serious and calm tone reflects on his time in nature; he chronicles his routine, his daily chores, and he connects this lifestyle to his own philosophy of life. He depicted nature in a positive tone, he had good things to say about both the phases of the day and the seasons of the year. He described the morning, “the most memorable season of the day”

Emerson claims that when the Earth and everything in it is “...in its forms and tendencies, describing its own design” (142). Annie Dillard and Barry Lopez are both well-known American authors, heavily influenced by the works of previous transcendental essayist’s, Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In Emerson’s work, Nature, he discusses how he believes that the true meaning of transcendentalism is the complete opposite of social conformity, going against the norm, and doing right for our own lives and nature (143). Dillard, sharing Emerson’s thoughts, ponders the differences between good and evil and how we perceive things. In Heaven and Earth in Jest, Dillard talks about how she does not blindly follow society, instead looking and admiring all sides of everything. She says, “The sign on my body could have been an emblem or a stain” (Dillard 868). Similar to Dillard, American writer Lopez has a deep understanding of Emerson’s transcendental thoughts, and recognizes the problems a lack of such understanding creates in modern society. Although his writing is still relevant to the nature writing of Emerson and Dillard, Lopez’s American Geographies essay mainly focuses on the ignorance of geography by many Americans and the issues that stem from this.

Emerson’s Nature is often cited as a defining text within the transcendental movement. In the essay, he address man’s relationship with nature in the context of modern society in 1836; however, the ideas remains applicable for audiences today. In the same manner, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, while written in 1953, it is equally, if not more, relevant to man’s experience in 2015. These two texts share more than just their lasting impression; they also contain distinctly similar themes, which pertain to the core of the transcendentalist movement. Nature is a commentary of the modern man’s inability to go into solitude. Emerson points out that solitude is not only about being by oneself, but also completely shedding one's societal

Albert Einstein spoke of nature and its value when he said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” As Einstein pointed out, by looking into nature you could discover something new about yourself and the world around you. John Muir and William Wordsworth both discovered joy when they looked deep into nature. This joy gave them a new perspective on nature and life and they each expressed this joy through different works of writing. Both authors have a unique outlook on nature and its impact as well as different thoughts on how to share their relationships; Muir used diction and connotation to show his relationship in his essay “The Calypso Borealis” where Wordsworth used tone and syntax in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.

Again in Walden, Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately” [1854]. It is quite strange that Thoreau had chosen to live in woods purposely. Perhaps one reason can be that he is a transcendentalist but one must not forget that he had discovered about the Walden Pond when he was deliberately living in the woods. However, another possible explanation can be that woods are not dominated or are controlled by anyone, nature lives freely in world. Therefore, a reader can

The natural world has always been an important subject to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman who were transcendental poets. Emerson and Thoreau were the Concord writers of Massachusetts and known as the “intellectual light of the American Movement”. Nature serves much more than a natural setting in the world. It is all the poems and essays By Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman which define nature as “the living character through which human identity is constructed either through the characters’ alignment with the natural world or their struggle against it”. According to the readings the works of each of them portray nature as a living force and viewed as possessing the knowledge that man needs to know. Transcendentalism

During the 1800’s, the period of the life of Walt Whitman, there were several notable writers who felt strong ties to the natural world and allowed their work to reflect this. These included Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson and John Muir and they were all players in the Transcendentalism movement that was coming to life. That theory – that people found their own version of spirituality, often through a connection to nature – is one that all of these great minds espoused in one way or another. But, perhaps Ralph Waldo Emerson had the most influence over Walt Whitman. Their views of nature were closely matched and Emerson, already being an admired writer, was someone Whitman looked up to.

Nature and wilderness were very important ideas to some extant for St. John de Crevecoeur and Ralph Waldo Emerson, each had their own opinions and ideas that contrasted against each other and were somewhat similar to each other. Emerson who valued it and looked at the nature as something to proud of had used it many times in his works as examples and that we are part of nature as well and make whatever choices from it as it can from us. While Crevecoeur believes that in every land it has its own form of culture as it does its own kind of nature, and describes how the land and nature was then and how it will be giving details of it in his pieces of work. How they use and see nature is described equally important in both their works “the American Scholar” and “What is an American” but shows how different their views really are in them.

    In his world-famous thought-provoking novel, Walden, Henry David Thoreau presents his readers with a simple, inspirational guide for living.  Written beside the beautiful Walden pond and completely surrounded by an unencumbered  natural world, Thoreau writes about his own relationship with the beauty that surrounds him.  His book provides an outlet for everyone to learn from his lessons learned in nature, whether they be city-dwellers or his own neighbors.  One of Thoreau's most prominent natural lessons running throughout his novel is that of his deeply rooted sense of himself and his connection with the natural world.  He relates nature and his experiences within it to his

“Self Reliance” and “Nature,” written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, both have themes that relate to those in “Walden,” by Henry David Thoreau, but also contrast at the same time. These three texts are already all closely related in the way they are written, and in what the authors are trying to say. The three texts are similar, and the themes of man’s connection with Nature, the illusion of process, and individualism all are used to inspire the transcendentalism movement.

As a background, Thoreau had lived alone in the woods by Walden Pond for two years and two months, in Concord, Massachusetts. A lot of people had asked him how his daily life was when he was there, and this book, Walden, is an attempt to answer that question. In his writing, he uses the first person view which he states that he knows his self best and aims to give a what he call a “simple and sincere account of his own life.” When Thoreau removed himself from society and chose solitude at Walden Pond and wrote this book is a proof of which he can communicate his ideas well to the readers.

Robert Frost, an indigenous New England poet, is deserving of an ovation for his contributions and magnitude in American Literature. Frost advises his readers to be actively engaged in questioning the world we inhabit (49, Dickstein). In most of Frost’s work, readers and critics enjoy his choices of theme, likely being the outdoors and his surroundings. By using “emotions recollected in tranquility” and his organic and inviolable relationship with his countryside, he celebrates New England’s natural beauty throughout his literature using simple and accessible idioms. Edward Garnett once predicted that Frost “was destined to take a permanent place in American Literature” which he unquestionably has (40-49).