How Did Ralph Waldo Emerson Influence Walt Whitman

When talking about Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman a similar question of “What came first the chicken or the egg?” comes to mind. Scholars may argue that without Emerson and his influential sermons and speeches that Walt Whitman would have never found his voice, but how can someone who so many consider one of the greatest poets of all time cease to exist? Ralph Waldo Emerson knew what he was doing when he published The Poet. It was an outcry for the American people to speak a truthful narrative about the human experience, warts and all. Ralph Waldo Emerson was an influential author and speaker, so when he wrote The Poet, Walt Whitman emerged and fulfilled his expectations after some hesitation from Emerson. Both authors paved the way for countless other writers and played a huge role in American culture and literature. While both authors have their respected writing styles, Walt Whitman found his voice through Emerson’s influence and responded to his call for American poets to step forth and show the world a new era of poetry and literature. Emerson had a specific idea of what poetry should be and although Whitman answered the call, he went in a different direction with his works and writing style.

    From looking at the titles of Walt Whitman's vast collection of poetry in Leaves of Grass one would be able to surmise that the great American poet wrote about many subjects -- expressing his ideas and thoughts about everything from religion to Abraham Lincoln. Quite the opposite is true, Walt Whitman wrote only about a single subject which was so powerful in the mind of the poet that it consumed him to the point that whatever he wrote echoed of that subject. The beliefs and tenets of transcendentalism were the subjects that caused Whitman to write and carried through not only in the wording and imagery of his poems, but also in the revolutionary way that he chose to write his poetry.

Walt Whitman was able to take the spark of an idea from Ralph Waldo Emerson and tend, nurture, and support it until the spark grew into a huge flame of something surprising and original - new American poetry. Whitman did not only learn from Emerson, but he also took Emerson's ideas and expanded them into something much more encompassing. Whitman was able to use Emerson's principles that are outlined in "The Poet" to springboard into something more expansive than Emerson was able to describe or create.

“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]

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were the giants during the 19th century American Transcendentalism movement. Their influential work brought upon shared beliefs on concerning spiritual perspectives, government interference, and the ideology of cultural values in American society. Nature has a multitude of meaning if looked at it from all angles, but deeper within nature is the reflection of what you exert while in it. However they agree on the human condition, the two authors speak with different tones that reflect how nature affects the entirety of man’s spirit. While both Emerson and Thoreau practice the spirit of the human condition, Emerson focused his energy on how “[nature’s] philosophical import [is]…unchanged by man” (215.) where Thoreau implied that we are “subjects of an experiment” (1051).

Nature is a major transcendental value which both Emerson and Thoreau thrive off of. Emerson

Transcendentalism, a powerful intellectual and philosophical movement founded by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the early nineteenth century, was guided by the principle that individuals are inherently good and function at their best when they are independent and self-reliant. Striving to produce a philosophy that would serve a new nation, transcendentalists believed that religious institutions and political parties would eventually corrupt the natural pure goodness of man. Transcendentalist ideology further asserts that by conforming to the standards set by society, man would not only lose the ability to follow his own instincts, but also become incapable of freely expressing himself. In his essay Self Reliance, Emerson writes, “Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something, which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for” (Emerson). Other writers and intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson have adopted Emerson’s views on individuality and have expressed these ideals through their work. The spirit of individuality and self-reliance, key principles of Transcendentalism, are noted in Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Nature (790).” Through their literary work, Douglass, Whitman, and Dickinson share

Whitman wrote broad stanzas and focused on the whole of America as his inspiration. His lines covered a wide range of topics and generated multiple points of view for the reader. He called his life’s work “Leaves of Grass”; stressing the

Renowned poets and philosophers Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, although being from different schools of thought, actually shared many of the same views about nature and mankind’s role in society. Whitman, being more of a ‘romantic’ poet, praised nature’s beauty and majestic qualities. Thoreau, on the other hand, was more of a Transcendentalist; The Transcendentalism school of thought emphasized individualism as a common theme and celebrated the ‘self’ as a separate, but equal, counterpart to the nature of our environment. While both of these poets had their opinions on the landscape around us, they were quite similar in their beliefs about mankind’s existence and skirted the line between both schools of thought.

Whitman has a philosophical approach about religion, religion practices and the journey of the soul. He uses the imagery of nature and other every day attributes to question life beyond death, rebirth and the unison of individual and nature. He is not afraid to die and admits ".... there is really no death, /and if ever there was it led toward life" (Whitman line…. )He finds the Devine power in nature and everything around him rather that in the altar of a church, which

This poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson is an exceptional work of his. Entirely characteristic of his poetic approach, it captures the full meaning behind the appreciation of nature, and it does so in a simple yet effective style. The poem is also, in my opinion, an effective rebuttal to the Puritan critique of the Emersonian lifestyle.

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.

After the Civil War, Walt Whitman realized that the American people were in need of their own identity. Therefore, he wrote the book “Leaves of Grass” with the goal of creating a literature piece that was authentic and organic to the United States in every sense. Whitman introduced to literature the idea of the “American Dream” and highlighted how important it was for the American people to develop their own identity. Consequently, he rejected the European writing styles and adapted the use of free-verses to his writing, making it a popular writing style in American poetry. Whitman valued of humanity, nature and spirituality. Therefore, he joined the Transcendental literary movement and

There is no question that Walt Whitman had the most significant influence on American literary history. Along with Emily Dickinson, Whitman represented the Romantic literature era of American literature. Whitman is known for his distinctive poetic forms and free verse. Whitman’s most popular work Leaves of Grass influenced many future writers that came after him to follow his writing style. The richness that Leaves of Grass left behind had such a huge impact on American writers of many different backgrounds and cultures. Whitman’s influence can be seen in the works of Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, and Sharon Olds.

Walt Whitman, a civil war nurse was a self-taught poet in the 1800s. Whitman is known for using lists, anaphora, free verse, and other literary devices in his poems. In his works, he focuses on American workers, diversity, transcendent approaches to nature, and individualism. “Song of Myself,” a poem written by Whitman, explores themes of nature, sex, democracy, and spirituality. Whitman uses nature to fuel his creativity in using grass as a symbol of comparison to life by using imagery, metaphors, and analogies.