Compare And Contrast Emerson And Edgar Allan Poe

Transcendentalism was a literary movement in the 19th century that deliberately pushed forth the exploration to define spirituality and nature in a new context. So much as it is to explore, the movement had an undertone of rebellion against current societal circumstances in which writers during this time sought to change not only their environment, but also the reinvention of oneself. Also simultaneously, the Industrial Revolution took place during this time and glorified the economic growth, which sparked an era of new human thinking.

In the beginning of creation of humans, nature has always been there as a friend. Nature is the phenomena of the physical world that includes plants, animals, the landscape, and other features that are on earth. Nature has all of the wild and domestic living things. Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American poet that led the transcendentalist movement and influenced other through his ideas and thinking. Ralph wrote “Nature,” and he describes his true feelings toward nature and God and how they have taken part of what has been created and also the relationship to humans. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes the passage “Nature” and he uses comparison between humans and nature and also uses figurative language to convey his appreciation and gratitude for nature.

Throughout time, people have been exposed to elements that help them understand life. These tools can be found through family, religion, etc. These tools were and still are used by many great authors. Emily Dickinson was a great writer and was often inspired by nature. She utilized nature as a way of reflecting on her life. Walt Whitman did the same as well. Whitman used nature to evoke emotions and create a body of work that was beautiful. In both of their works, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson use nature to portray their views on death.

Edgar Allen Poe was one of the great writers of this world. He created several poems and short stories of a dark and dreary setting. His imagination was incredible. Edgar Allen Poe did not have a normal life. Bad luck and heart ach seemed to follow him until his death. His writing style was very different than other writers' style. His most famous

In the year of 1600’s, the United States of America was being colonized by European countries especially by England. However, on 4th of July 1776 America became independent after having drafted the “Declaration of Independence” initiated by Thomas Jefferson [History of the United States, Wikipedia]. The difference between these two time periods shows that Britain had colonized America for about 176 years which ultimately led to prosper European cultures. Although America became an independent nation, European culture was still playing its role. Therefore, American writers namely Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau presented an idea about American Identity.

     They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As stated in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Poetic Principle," a concept of beauty can only be achieved through the use of emotion, an "excitement of the soul," a necessary element to any worthwhile poem (Poe 8). Poe's fascination with the mystery of death and the afterlife are often clearly rooted in his poems and provide a basis for himself and the reader to truly experience his concept of beauty. Although also a believer in portraying beauty through poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson found beauty to be eminent in nature and all things created by the Oversoul. Beauty for Emerson is not an idea or unknown, it is visible all around him.

In the early mid-nineteenth century, a philosophical movement known as transcendentalism took root and flourished in America. It evolved into a predominantly literary expression which placed an emphasis on the corruptions of organized religion, political parties, and societal involvement; above all, the movement promoted the wonders of “nature” and its deep connection to the divine. The adherents through transcendentalism believed that knowledge could be arrived through intuition and contemplation of the internal spirit rather than by the means of the senses. As the two most prominent figures in the transcendentalist movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau whole-heartedly embrace the principles of nature

People now had the ability to see more new and beautiful things that had never been seen before which perpetuated the belief in nature’s divinity. As nature began to be recognized as a divine part of the world, a new philosophy came to fruition which was very connected to the ideals of the Romanticism period. This philosophy was known as Transcendentalism which is another strong example of progressiveness in America. Transcendentalism allowed people to break away from standard values and look inward for their own personal and separate beliefs. Transcendentalists all believed that nature helped them learn better and connect deeper with god. The father of transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote an entire book on nature and the importance of it in a man’s life. He said that “nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair.” (Emerson). Emerson believed that nature was the greatest gift God had given to humans, and nature, God, and humans were all part of a sort of “holy

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.

Edgar Allan Poe has a distinctive and dark way of writing (Poe & Kennedy, pp.22). His mysterious style of writing appeals to passion and sentimentality. Poe’s most prominent works of fiction are gothic. His stories tend to have similar recurring theme of either death, lost love or both. Poe’s psychologically thrilling stories examining the depths of the humanoid psyche earned him much fame throughout his lifetime and after his death. And this distinctive style of writing made him possess his own style of wiring (Arbor, pp.71). There is a psychological concentration which is an important characteristic of Poe’s literatures, particularly the tales of horror that encompass his best and well-known works, such as The Black Cat and The Raven which

When looking at a piece of literature through a psychological approach it is easy to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and superego, which focus on conscious and unconscious behavior. When analyzing many of Poe’s works, critics tend to look through a psychological lens. Specifically in Poe’s The Black Cat. Some critics believe that Poe’s alcoholism is reflected in the piece, but many, such as James W. Gargano “advised the tales readers to avoid the biographical pitfall of seeing Poe and the first-person narrator of The Black Cat as ‘identical literary twins’” (Piacentino 1). It is due to his childhood that Poe’s narrator in The Black Cat subconsciously places animals before humans, thus leading to him to murder his wife.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) born in the United States was a poet, writer, critic, and journalist recognized as one of the greatest exponents of the Dark Romanticism (Ultan and Olson, 51). Dark Romanticism is an American literary subgenre emerged in the nineteenth century from the philosophical movement called transcendentalism. Dark Romanticism, broadly speaking, rely very little on perfection as an innate quality of the human being, a key idea of the transcendentalists (Howard, 1). As consequence, its characters are prone to sin and self-destruction, since by nature, they are not wise or divine beings. One of the most representative authors of the current is Poe, who is

Let’s take David Henry Thoreau for instance. He was an old poet who lived in the beginning of the 1800’s. He loved writing and most of all, he loved being in nature. He lived in the wilderness on Walden Pond for almost two years. He experienced nature, wrote about nature, and in all technicality, escaped from the real world and society he was raised in to go explore and see what nature had to offer to him. Thoreau loves the goodness in nature and states that society as a whole can and is ruining it. A fellow colleague named Emerson also thought similar to Thoreau, and also sought out to see how beautiful nature is. Emerson in his writings, talk about how pure he thinks nature is and how he (and also Thoreau) believes that people isolated provides them to be essentially closer to nature and see they can see how pure it is and the purity it gives to people. To Emerson, being in nature can get rid of evil for he thinks that god gave nature to people as a present. He sees nature valuably and believed that men could essentially be completely relieved if only in and connected with nature. (Brandon

“Nature” is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. [1] “Nature” has a total of 41 pages. The essay consists of eight parts: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit and Prospects. Each part takes a different perspective on the relationship between humans and nature. In this essay, Emerson emphasizes the foundation of transcendentalism, “a religious and philosophical movement that developed during the late 1820s and 30s in the Eastern region of the United States as protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism.” [2] “Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature, and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature.” [3] “Transcendentalism is closely related to Unitarianism, the dominant religious movement in Boston at the early nineteenth century. Transcendentalism evolved as an organic consequence of the Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason.” [4] Emerson divides nature into four stages: commodity, beauty, language, and discipline. These define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs. The historical significance of “Nature” was that transcendentalism club led the celebration of the American experiment as one of the individualism and self-reliance. [5]

Edgar Allen Poe (Poe) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Emerson) are both famed romantic writers and poets from early to mid-nineteenth century. Their works are still some of the most studied and referenced in the present day. Both authors are famed for their writing and ideas, but their fame gained success each in their unique way. The two men had starkly different writing styles, and their views on philosophy were just as different. Both differences are evident when reading the two authors works. Emerson has an approach that based its roots in nature. He observes people and nature coinciding as one and brings out the beauty not just of nature but of life that others may not observe as part of their everyday life. Emerson has a passion for using his writing to better peoples’ outlook and opinion on life through his philosophical ideas. Poes approach to romantic writing is self-centered, and the way he portrays romanticism is in some cases dark. Rather than help the reader and their feelings; Poe writes about his experiences and his feelings through different avenues of writing. Both authors have a common theme in their writing. They both show an importance of self-awareness.