Mary Oliver And Walt Whitman's View Of Nature

Mary Oliver’s work turns towards nature as a source of inspiration it has been and describes her sense of wonder that it instills on her. She writes in “when the death comes” as follows: "I want to say: all my life / I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms." Her outlook in life was more focused on the strict role nature played in people’s lives which can be seen in her poems; “the horse”, “the sun”, and “the summer day”- "Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me what is it that you plan to do with your one

Prior to diving into the many new insights that can be comprehended while viewing history through a natural lense, it is important to define nature in this context. While man is technically a creation of nature, and therefore nature himself, he shall be excluded from this brief definition of what composes nature. Here, nature will be considered everything living or otherwise on this earth that is not a creation or product of humanity. All other creatures and parts of the environment are to be considered nature.

This semester I have learned valuable tools and techniques when it comes to writing and analyzing different types of literature. I will thoroughly explore what Whitman, Columbus and Smith meant in specific passages of a few of their literature works. Whitman’s free verse poems, “Leaves of Grass” and “Song of Myself”, seemed to be most appealing. I also found Christopher Columbus’s “Letter to Lluis de Santangel” and “Letter to Ferdinand and Isabella” to be quite intriguing about life back then. Even John Smith’s writings such as “The General Historie of Virginia” and “A Description of New England” enlightened me to what it was they saw when venturing out in the new world.

He personifies nature as a human being by giving him the ability to hug and give warmth to others. He also says that people should have no worries in him because the beauty of nature is not the temporary happiness of sadness that life brings you, but the ability to breathe in air. The ability to stand up and walk. Nature has the ability to bring the best out of the worst. The narrator also says that people can truly see nature when they are isolated from society due to the fact that they can think take their time to analyze

Walt Whitman loved to experiment with form when it came to poetry. He used his verses to show his complete adoration of all things wild, and our role as beings in this infinitely complex and thought-provoking universe in which we exist. To say he had a bit of a “nature crush” would be an understatement – Whitman goes in to great detail of his love for the wildness and often describes his emotions in a viscerally sexual manner, using poetic devices to underline his immense feelings for environment and hammer in the imagery to readers of how majestic the world appears to him. “Romantic” poets loved the outdoors – if it wasn’t contained in four walls and a roof, they were all about it. They loved to praise the innate details that made our planet so incredible,

    Charlotte Bronte makes extensive use of nature imagery in her novel, Jane Eyre, commenting on both the human relationship with the outdoors and with human nature. The Oxford Reference Dictionary defines "nature" as "1. the phenomena of the physical world as a whole . . . 2. a thing's essential qualities; a person's or animal's innate character . . . 4. vital force, functions, or needs." Bronte speaks to each of these definitions throughout Jane Eyre.

Whitman takes the idea of using parts of nature as unique symbols and transfers this idea into humanity. More specifically, Whitman is able to go beyond Emerson's idea of nature as a symbol and make humans symbols. Most obvious is the way that Whitman uses himself as a symbol of all of humanity. He sees the ideas of humanity coming from him and states, "Through me many long dumb voices…Through me forbidden voices,"(Whitman Section 24 Line 12 & 20). He says that he is a "kosmos" - or he is a universe,

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

Mary Oliver, who was acknowledged by the New York Times as “far and away, this country’s best selling poet,” was born on September 10, 1935 in Maple Heights, Ohio. At age fourteen, she started writing poetry about the lush woods surrounding her childhood home. Later on, she drew inspiration from Edna St. Vincent Millay, a poet and feminist, whose house she stayed at in New York. While she was there, she met her lifelong partner, Molly Malone Cook. In the 1960s, she and Molly relocated to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Influenced by transcendentalists like Whitman and Thoreau, she is well known for her themes of the natural world. However, while her earliest poems solely focus on nature, she evolved to become more personal and spiritual by

Nature has been a prominent theme in poetry. It is a subject that everyone can associate with. Nature is an eternal and everlasting part of our everyday life. Poets use nature as theme to remind us of the peaceful, magnificent, beauty many of us take for granted. Most of society does not take the time to stop and take a look at the flowers. Nature themed poems help us to experience appreciation for the earth.

This is another poem that links Whitman to the Romantics. The "birth of the poet" genre was of particular importance to Wordsworth, whose massive Prelude details his artistic coming-of-age in detail. Like Wordsworth, Whitman claims to take his inspiration from nature. Where Wordsworth is inspired by a wordless feeling of awe, though, Whitman finds an opportunity to anthropomorphize, and nature gives him very specific answers to his questions about overarching concepts. Nature is a tabula rasa onto which the poet can project himself. He conquers it, inscribes it. While it may become a part of him that is always present, the fact that it does so seems to be by his permission.

Aristotle defined nature “as an internal origin of change or stability”1. Natural substances are things such as animals, plants and inanimate matter like earth, water, fire and air. Each natural substance according to Aristotle has its own nature, which is what gives rise to its natural behaviour/characteristic. The nature of a natural substance is its inner principle/source of change.2

Nature as w e know it means different things to different people. To an economist, natural is often seen as a resource to be transformed and put in readiness for human use. An alternative view is that humans are stewards who should care for natural things as well as making use of nature’s bounty. Another view is that nature of animism, which sees nature as a living thing, something to be respected and not controlled. Some native American’s view the earth as a sacred place could be called animist. Another alternative view is that the entire planet earth is a self correcting system based on a symbiotic relationship between the earth and the living beings(Peacock,

The dominant themes that are more pervasive in Whitman’s poetry are democracy, life/death cycles, individualism, and nature. These themes play major roles in some of his more notable poems such as “Songs of Myself” or “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” He used democracy as a theme to bring society together, and unite everyone based on their general beliefs. He depicted life and death cycles to merge society together on a spiritual level. Despite his eagerness to unite society he also embraced individualism, and is also a persistent theme in most of his poetry. Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people who there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature connect us all, and encourage people to

I would define nature as the world around us without any type of human involvement. I believe that nature is anything natural to the earth. It is the plants, animals, rivers, forests, birds, weather, etc. It is a gift given to us from god. Most people believe that nature is just centered on the thought of the ocean and forest. Nature to me is the life source for all living creatures it provides us with the four essential things that we need to survive which are food, water, air, and shelter. However, we are so disconnected from nature we do not see the constant damage that is destroying our home.