Nature Questions and Answers
Nature
In Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, what does he mean by the line, “The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but...
What Emerson is seeking to highlight in these lines is what he regards as a difference in attitude towards the natural world between adults and children. On this reading, too many adults look at...
Nature
What does "Nature always wears the color of the spirit" mean?
This quote appears in chapter 1, in which Emerson briefly outlines the values of human communion with nature that he will elaborate on in the rest of the essay. He finds the solitude nature affords...
Nature
How can I identify the elements of transcendentalism in Emerson's "Nature"?
Transcendentalism borrowed heavily from English Romanticism in locating the divine force in nature. Following the lead of Wordsworth and other romantic poets, Transcendentalists like Emerson...
Nature
What does "I am glad to the brink of fear" mean?
In Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson describes the intensity of nature when one fully understands it. He observes that a person who is properly at one with nature will be filled with a "wild delight"...
Nature
What does Emerson say would happen if the stars appeared only one night in a thousand years?
The stars are such a common sight that we take them for granted. This is what Ralph Waldo Emerson implies in Nature. Yet if the stars appeared “one night in a thousand years,” people would look at...
Nature
What mood does Emerson convey when he writes that "the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as...
The mood of a piece of writing is the feelings or emotion it conveys. Emerson's point in the paragraph in which this sentence appears is that the pleasure or emotion nature evokes is based on a...
Nature
What is an example of personification in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Nature"?
Personification is the attribution of human qualities to something which is not human. In chapter 1, Emerson states that Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort...
Nature
What is the “greatest delight which the fields and woods minister”?
In chapter 1 of his essay Nature, Emerson writes, The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relationship between man and the vegetable. Emerson...
Nature
What is the tone of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Nature?"
Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature" has a lyrical tone, as much of the writing has the quality of music or poetry. For example, Emerson writes the following: The rays that come from those heavenly...
Nature
What does Emerson mean when he says he becomes a "transparent eyeball"?
In Nature, Emerson discusses communing with the natural world in the woods. He states, first, that most people interact with the woods on a superficial level. As for himself, however, he...
Nature
What three aspects of the beauty of nature does Emerson delineate?
In his chapter called "Beauty," Emerson outlines the three aspects of beauty: the physical, the spiritual, and the intellectual. First, he calls physical beauty the beauty of "simple perception."...
Nature
Why does Emerson say "A man is a god in ruins" in Nature?
In Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson endeavors to clarify the difficulties and hindrances to Man's successful union with Nature. From a reading of excerpts of his book, he explains how we...
Nature
In Nature, what does Emerson mean when he talks about a "poetical sense" of looking at nature?
As always, it is particularly important to look at quotations in context to help us be aware of what the author is trying to say by including them in their writing. In this case, if we have a look...
Nature
How does Emerson feel about the ownership of nature?
Emerson feels that, though a human being might own a piece of property or a plot of land, no one can truly own nature itself or the really significant things that nature can offer us: its beauty,...
Nature
What does Emerson mean when he writes, "Our age is retrospective"? How would you describe living in a...
I believe that what Emerson means by saying that our age is retrospective is that we value thinkers and artists and heros of the past more than we value those of our own times. For example, we...
Nature
In the introductory portion of Emerson's Nature, what does he mean by "Our age is retrospective. It builds the...
History teachers would not like this quote from Emerson. What he is saying is that the people (of Emerson's time) too often look back to history to learn more about their present situations....
Nature
What is the central theme in Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson? Is this theme stated or implied? Explain.
Emerson states his themes pretty straightforwardly. He outlines a number of nature's beneficial effects on human beings and how it seems to even restore us to a better and more fundamental version...
Nature
In what part of Nature does Emerson describe the most profound change taking place as discussed in the opening part...
Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to...
Nature
What event causes the author "perfect exhilaration"?
Emerson actually suggests that there are multiple unremarkable events which could cause him to feel what he calls a "perfect exhilaration." The example he gives is of an occasion when he was...
Nature
What rhetorical strategies does Ralph Waldo Emerson employ in chapter 1, "Nature," of his work entitled Nature?...
Emerson uses a fair amount of figurative language, rhetorical devices which make his writing all the more interesting and vivid and help him to make his argument better by keeping his audience more...
Nature
What does the following quote from Nature mean? "The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental:...
In essence, this quote means that the narrator finds a companion such as a friend or acquaintance to be "a trifle or disturbance" when he is in the midst of contemplating the various facets of...
Nature
One of Emerson's final statements in Nature is “Build, therefore, your own world.” What is he saying here?
In this quote, Emerson is encouraging readers to take advantage of the abilities they have and to set out and achieve all that is possible. One of the main themes of this text is the idea that all...
Nature
Why does Emerson describe the effect of the stars?
In Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson speaks of the stars as a prime example of the natural world and its relationship with and effects on human beings. Emerson proposes a scenario for his readers to...
Nature
What does the following quote mean? "One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with the design, to give...
The Transcendentalists believed the presence of God or the divine (however they might individually define it) was made manifest in nature. Emerson speaks to this in the above quote, saying we...
Nature
What is the tone of Nature by Emerson?
In Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson employs both a philosophical tone to appeal to his readers' intellect and a poetic tone to delight their emotions. Let's look at a couple of examples of each. The...
Nature
What is Emerson's style as well as his literary techniques in his essay "Nature"?
Within the essay "Nature," Emerson utilizes parallel structure in asserting, "The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the...
Nature
What does Emerson mean when he says "but none of them own the landscape"?
In "Nature," Ralph Waldo Emerson begins by discussing what he means by the word "nature" in the poetic sense, saying that its primary meaning is "the integrity of impression made by manifold...
Nature
Paraphrase the following Emerson quote: "To a Man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in...
The death of a "dear friend" is the question in this quotation from Emerson. Who is the dear friend, and why has he died? Emerson writes, "To a man laboring under calamity . . ." In this, he is...
Nature
How does Emerson describe a lover of nature?
Emerson sees nature as something divine and original in the universe. It is our true state. He suggests that as children, having not had many years in constructed societies and unnatural...
Nature
From "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson: According to Emerson, how are we connected to nature, and why is that...
According to Emerson's "Nature," we are all connected to nature most truly when we are alone. The "heavenly bodies," in particular, are what connect us to the sublime, because they represent...
Nature
What does Emerson mean when he says nature loves analogies but not repetitions?
In his essay Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson laments the conformity imposed upon students in the education system. Emerson feels that people are brought up to perceive the world exactly as the ancients...
Nature
How is the aspect of beauty presented in "Nature" by Emerson?
In his essay “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson uses the philosophy of transcendentalism from other schools of thought on humankind’s acquisition of knowledge. Expanding upon rationalist and empiricist...
Nature
What can the poet's eye do when the poet looks at nature?
Emerson suggests, in the first chapter of Nature, that when we talk about nature as he is—describing the “kindred” relationship between nature and the human mind, that the wisest person can learn...
Nature
What is an analysis of chapter 1 of Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
In Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson sought to explain his own philosophical theories about the place of people in the universe. In the Introduction, he explains that he sees "nature" as everything...
Nature
What does Emerson mean by saying that "Nature work[s] through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first...
The full sentence says, "Thus in Art, does Nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works." By this, Emerson means that when we view and become filled with the...
Nature
Compare and contrast Emerson's "Nature" essay with his "Self-Reliance" essay. How do they both represent Emerson's...
Both essays show Emerson at his most idiosyncratic. These are beautiful essays that make amazing assertions and whose arguments are, in part, exercises in self-justification. In “Self Reliance,”...
Nature
Using Nature, what is different about an adult that makes him or her not see nature as they did as a child?
Early in his 1836 essay, Emerson observes that there is a difference in the way a man regards nature as he moves from childhood to adulthood. The relationship is still there, but it evolves from...
Nature
In "Nature," Emerson discussed the delight the natural world often inspires. What does Emerson think this power to...
Here is a sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all...
Nature
Paraphrase the following quote from Emerson's Nature: "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how...
In one of the opening lines to Emerson's text, the quote brings out the special and unique quality that Emerson sees in the natural world. The description of the stars as "heavenly worlds"...
Nature
In "Nature" what are three ways the woods can transform a man?
The first way that the woods can transform a man is by turning him back into a child. Not literally of course, but the woods can restore the child like wonder in a man. "In the woods too, a man...
Nature
In Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, where does he say one can return to "reason and faith"?
In Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, the poet praises the natural world. Nature is Emerson's first book, and his love and respect for nature and the guidance he believes mankind can find in the...
Nature
How do the lines in Emerson's Nature “Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air...” correspond to...
The Transcendentalist movement (of which many see Emerson as the unofficial "leader") was about religious perceptions "rooted in the ideas of American democracy," a response by a group of Bostonian...
Nature
What are three ways the woods can transform a man according to Emerson in Nature?
Emerson believed that spending time in the woods was good for a person's all-around wellbeing. Early on in Nature, Emerson discusses how going out into the woods and gazing at the sky can remind a...
Nature
Why is virtue at the essence of spiritual beauty in Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Beauty"?
In "Beauty," the third chapter of Emerson's essay Nature, Emerson argues that "Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue." In other words, God has arranged nature so that things which are virtuous...
Nature
What elements of Transcendentalism can be seen in the short poem that was included at the beginning of Emerson's Nature?
Transcendentalism was a movement in the late 1820s and 1830s. The ideas are not religious in nature, but an understanding of life and how everyone is connected in the world. Key concepts of the...
Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson contends that our attitude toward the stars would change if they appeared only once every...
Just prior to this quotation, Emerson has explained that, if we really want to be solitary, we must go out into nature—not just to our own rooms. When we are surrounded by the trappings of society,...
Nature
In Nature, highlight some of the ways Emerson says we are connected to nature. What is significant about that? Are...
Emerson famously says in this essay that in the woods he becomes a "transparent eyeball," or "part and particle of God," phrases which suggest a kind of dissolution of the self. Understanding...
Nature
How does Emerson's "Nature" discuss the tension between nature and culture (or civilization)? How does one relate to...
Tension exists in Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature" because, according to Emerson, Nature and Culture operate as competing forces. In the introduction to "Nature," Emerson claims, Our age is...
Nature
What effect does nature have on Emerson?
Nature makes Emerson feel as though he has achieved true solitude, as it is not enough to simply seclude oneself in one's house. One must actually remove oneself from all trappings of society,...
Nature
How does the following Emerson quote make writing better:" "I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody...
Emerson's quote from his work, Nature, helps to bring out how individuals can exist apart from others, yet keep them in mind. This is essential to the writing process. Just as Emerson constructs...
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