| Basic Concept: The Romantic Concept
of Nature
If nature for the Neo-classicists was something more akin to a gaggle of natural laws, for the Romantics, Nature was closer to the "beatific vision," the seat of the sublime, the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, the "Power," according to William Cullen Bryant, that will "lead [our] steps aright" ("To a Waterfowl"). Nowhere is the concept of the spirituality of Nature more thoroughly explicated than in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Nature" (1844). . For Emerson, "Nature" speaks in a hierarchy of voices, ranging from Nature-as-simple-commodity to Nature-as-the-Sublime. The idealization of Nature was, in part, a natural consequence of the idealization of the whole American experiment, founded upon a paragraph of "self-evident" truths in the "Declaration." But Nature embodied a whole text of spiritual truths open to anyone willing to observe and listen. Nature was teaming with life and consciousness, a partner in the spiritual quickening of the person sensitive to his or her own membership as an element of that same "Nature." Emerson echoed Coleridge's conception of "Nature's ministry to Man. William Cullen Bryant discovered in Nature symbols of humanity's condition, insight that would be celebrated in the moral/philosophical poetry of "correspondence." In the mystical voice of the universe-at-large, Whitman promised his future readers to "grow from the grass I love," from where he would "be good health to them . . . nevertheless, and filter and fiber [their] blood." . Online Connections For an engaging introduction to Emerson's "enigmatic little book, Nature," see Dr. Ann M. Woodlief's "Emerson's Nature: A River Reading" and her interactive "Web Study Text" devoted to the essay. . Our Course Connections Read the "nature" selections in the poetry of Philip Freneau and William Cullen Bryant. Peruse Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Nature," and Henry David Thoreau's "Walden." .  |