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Nature
Through his writing and his own personal philosophy, the famed philosopher unburdened his young country of Europe's traditional sense of history and showed Americans how to be creators of their own circumstances. His mandate, which called for harmony with, rather than domestication of, nature, and for a reliance on individual integrity, rather than on materialistic institutions, is echoed in many of the great American philosophical and literary works of his time and ours, and has given an impetus to modern political and social activism.
117 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1836
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About the author
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3,423 books5,366 followersRalph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau.
The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.
The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 578 reviews
February 11, 2021
A charming essay (as is usually the case with Emerson -- I much prefer his essays to his poetry actually).
This essay is split into eight sections, and each of which provides a new way of looking at nature. Emerson illustrates his points with natural images, and his sentence structure is lyrical which makes it an enjoyable read.
I picked this up because this essay is known for its construction of the Romantic Child as a point of innocence.
This essay is split into eight sections, and each of which provides a new way of looking at nature. Emerson illustrates his points with natural images, and his sentence structure is lyrical which makes it an enjoyable read.
I picked this up because this essay is known for its construction of the Romantic Child as a point of innocence.
September 10, 2018
i would like to meet one (1) person who understands any of this.
there’s some good one liners that i agree with, but most of this book just sounded like a crackhead conspiracy theorist standing on a street corner and yelling WE ARE ALL A TRANSLUCENT EYE THAT CONNECTS US TO THE SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSE like wut......
far too philosophical and spiritual for me. i much prefer works about the sublime.
there’s some good one liners that i agree with, but most of this book just sounded like a crackhead conspiracy theorist standing on a street corner and yelling WE ARE ALL A TRANSLUCENT EYE THAT CONNECTS US TO THE SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSE like wut......
far too philosophical and spiritual for me. i much prefer works about the sublime.
December 19, 2025
Nature presents itself as a philosophical essay, yet its language seems determined to avoid the very clarity philosophy requires. Instead of argument, we are offered a haze of lyrical abstractions, sentences that drift like mist across a pond, beautiful to look at but impossible to stand on.
Emerson’s prose aspires to the condition of poetry, but without the discipline that poetry demands; it is ornament without architecture. The result is an essay that gestures toward insight while refusing to articulate it, as though the mere presence of a metaphor could substitute for the labor of thought. One begins to suspect that the style is not an aesthetic choice but a strategic evasion: a way to avoid saying anything that might be tested, challenged, or even precisely understood.
This evasiveness becomes especially apparent in Emerson’s insistence on collapsing nature into theology. What begins as an inquiry into the natural world quickly dissolves into a sermon delivered in the key of transcendental rapture. Nature is not described so much as divinized, transformed into a shimmering extension of the divine mind. For a writer ostensibly concerned with the material world, Emerson seems remarkably uninterested in it, preferring instead to treat forests, fields, and stars as props in a metaphysical pageant. The effect is to render nature inaccessible to anyone who does not share his spiritual assumptions. Readers who approach the natural world through science, ethics, aesthetics, or lived experience are quietly displaced by a vision that insists on God as the only legitimate interpretive framework. The essay’s universal claims thus rest on a decidedly non-universal foundation.
This universalizing impulse is further undermined by Emerson’s habit of speaking for “all” humanity while clearly imagining only a very small portion of it. His rhetoric of the “whole,” the “universal,” and the “human” is built on exclusions so thorough they become invisible. The transcendental subject he invokes is not a neutral observer but a very specific figure: educated, male, white, and firmly situated within the cultural assumptions of 19th century New England. Emerson’s sweeping declarations about human experience therefore ring hollow, not because they are ambitious, but because they are provincial. The essay’s grand claims about unity and oneness falter under the weight of the narrow worldview that produces them.
Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in Emerson’s treatment of Indigenous people, who appear in Nature not as subjects with agency but as scenic elements, part of the picturesque backdrop against which European “intellect” supposedly advances. Emerson’s language—invoking “savages,” “primitive” peoples, and other familiar colonial tropes—reveals a worldview in which non European cultures exist primarily to highlight the heroism of European explorers. This is not an incidental flaw but a structural one: the essay’s romantic idealism depends on a hierarchy in which some humans are closer to nature, and therefore closer to disappearance, than others. Emerson’s sublime landscapes are thus built on erasure, his celebration of nature inseparable from a colonial logic that treats Indigenous people as part of the scenery.
This logic is reinforced by Emerson’s entanglement with 19th century race science, a body of thought that sought to classify human beings into hierarchies under the guise of intellectual inquiry. Emerson’s admiration for the so called “Anglo Saxon” race, and his belief in its inherent superiority, align him with the racial ideologies of his time. Historians have not exaggerated in describing him as a central figure in American white race theory; his writings repeatedly affirm the notion that some groups are destined to lead while others are destined to fade. That this worldview coexists with his lyrical celebrations of unity and harmony only heightens the contradiction. The essay’s spiritual expansiveness is built atop a foundation of exclusion.
Even Emerson’s reputation as a “mild” or “liberal” racist does little to mitigate the problem. The tension between his public advocacy for the rights of marginalized groups and his private or textual assumptions about their inferiority reveals a worldview that is progressive only within the narrow confines of its own hierarchy. He could argue for the legal rights of those he simultaneously described as “savages,” a contradiction that exposes the limits of his moral imagination. His transcendental universalism, far from transcending the prejudices of his era, merely repackages them in more elevated prose.
In the end, the beauty of Emerson’s sentences cannot conceal the ideological structures they support. The lyrical language, the spiritual fervor, the sweeping claims about unity—all of these serve to mask the exclusions, hierarchies, and erasures embedded within the text. Nature may aspire to reveal the divine in the world around us, but it ultimately reveals far more about the limitations of its author. The essay’s grandeur collapses under the weight of its contradictions, leaving behind a work that is less a celebration of nature than a monument to the blind spots of transcendental idealism.
Emerson’s prose aspires to the condition of poetry, but without the discipline that poetry demands; it is ornament without architecture. The result is an essay that gestures toward insight while refusing to articulate it, as though the mere presence of a metaphor could substitute for the labor of thought. One begins to suspect that the style is not an aesthetic choice but a strategic evasion: a way to avoid saying anything that might be tested, challenged, or even precisely understood.
This evasiveness becomes especially apparent in Emerson’s insistence on collapsing nature into theology. What begins as an inquiry into the natural world quickly dissolves into a sermon delivered in the key of transcendental rapture. Nature is not described so much as divinized, transformed into a shimmering extension of the divine mind. For a writer ostensibly concerned with the material world, Emerson seems remarkably uninterested in it, preferring instead to treat forests, fields, and stars as props in a metaphysical pageant. The effect is to render nature inaccessible to anyone who does not share his spiritual assumptions. Readers who approach the natural world through science, ethics, aesthetics, or lived experience are quietly displaced by a vision that insists on God as the only legitimate interpretive framework. The essay’s universal claims thus rest on a decidedly non-universal foundation.
This universalizing impulse is further undermined by Emerson’s habit of speaking for “all” humanity while clearly imagining only a very small portion of it. His rhetoric of the “whole,” the “universal,” and the “human” is built on exclusions so thorough they become invisible. The transcendental subject he invokes is not a neutral observer but a very specific figure: educated, male, white, and firmly situated within the cultural assumptions of 19th century New England. Emerson’s sweeping declarations about human experience therefore ring hollow, not because they are ambitious, but because they are provincial. The essay’s grand claims about unity and oneness falter under the weight of the narrow worldview that produces them.
Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in Emerson’s treatment of Indigenous people, who appear in Nature not as subjects with agency but as scenic elements, part of the picturesque backdrop against which European “intellect” supposedly advances. Emerson’s language—invoking “savages,” “primitive” peoples, and other familiar colonial tropes—reveals a worldview in which non European cultures exist primarily to highlight the heroism of European explorers. This is not an incidental flaw but a structural one: the essay’s romantic idealism depends on a hierarchy in which some humans are closer to nature, and therefore closer to disappearance, than others. Emerson’s sublime landscapes are thus built on erasure, his celebration of nature inseparable from a colonial logic that treats Indigenous people as part of the scenery.
This logic is reinforced by Emerson’s entanglement with 19th century race science, a body of thought that sought to classify human beings into hierarchies under the guise of intellectual inquiry. Emerson’s admiration for the so called “Anglo Saxon” race, and his belief in its inherent superiority, align him with the racial ideologies of his time. Historians have not exaggerated in describing him as a central figure in American white race theory; his writings repeatedly affirm the notion that some groups are destined to lead while others are destined to fade. That this worldview coexists with his lyrical celebrations of unity and harmony only heightens the contradiction. The essay’s spiritual expansiveness is built atop a foundation of exclusion.
Even Emerson’s reputation as a “mild” or “liberal” racist does little to mitigate the problem. The tension between his public advocacy for the rights of marginalized groups and his private or textual assumptions about their inferiority reveals a worldview that is progressive only within the narrow confines of its own hierarchy. He could argue for the legal rights of those he simultaneously described as “savages,” a contradiction that exposes the limits of his moral imagination. His transcendental universalism, far from transcending the prejudices of his era, merely repackages them in more elevated prose.
In the end, the beauty of Emerson’s sentences cannot conceal the ideological structures they support. The lyrical language, the spiritual fervor, the sweeping claims about unity—all of these serve to mask the exclusions, hierarchies, and erasures embedded within the text. Nature may aspire to reveal the divine in the world around us, but it ultimately reveals far more about the limitations of its author. The essay’s grandeur collapses under the weight of its contradictions, leaving behind a work that is less a celebration of nature than a monument to the blind spots of transcendental idealism.
June 14, 2016
Emerson's essay Nature pretty much defeated me. I read Self-Reliance years ago and was incredibly impressed and inspired, but although I think Nature was included in the little volume I still have up in Arizona, I don't remember reading it at the time. So when I had the opportunity to include this in a challenge, I was looking forward to reading what Emerson had to say.
But although at times I thought I was just about to grasp his ideas so that I could say "Eureka, I see what you are saying!" it usually happened that the point he was making slithered away before I could interpret it properly. This is not Emerson's fault, but my own. I am a bit fuzzy-brained these days, and that state does not mix well with this type of reading.
I did come close enough to a few points to either agree, disagree, or wonder if I was reading correctly. Such as when Emerson seems to be saying that Nature has value only in when it relates to Man in some way. Here is an example of this: "The instincts of the ant are very unimportant, considered as the ant's; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime."
That was the final sentence of a long paragraph where I was beginning to wonder about my abilities to understand anything. To me the instincts and habits of an ant are sublime because they are the
instincts and habits of an ant, not because of how they relate to man. We have to understand and appreciate that every being, plant or animal, is simply being itself. Whether Man is involved or not should make no difference in how we view an ant or any creature in Nature. We need to see and appreciate the world around us for its own sake only, not for what we can take from it.
I want to read this again someday when I am better able to think in a sharper manner. I do like the following quote, though.....and believe it or not, I even understood it!
"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."
But although at times I thought I was just about to grasp his ideas so that I could say "Eureka, I see what you are saying!" it usually happened that the point he was making slithered away before I could interpret it properly. This is not Emerson's fault, but my own. I am a bit fuzzy-brained these days, and that state does not mix well with this type of reading.
I did come close enough to a few points to either agree, disagree, or wonder if I was reading correctly. Such as when Emerson seems to be saying that Nature has value only in when it relates to Man in some way. Here is an example of this: "The instincts of the ant are very unimportant, considered as the ant's; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime."
That was the final sentence of a long paragraph where I was beginning to wonder about my abilities to understand anything. To me the instincts and habits of an ant are sublime because they are the
instincts and habits of an ant, not because of how they relate to man. We have to understand and appreciate that every being, plant or animal, is simply being itself. Whether Man is involved or not should make no difference in how we view an ant or any creature in Nature. We need to see and appreciate the world around us for its own sake only, not for what we can take from it.
I want to read this again someday when I am better able to think in a sharper manner. I do like the following quote, though.....and believe it or not, I even understood it!
"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."
October 1, 2019
«همه چیز در طبیعت خلاصه میشود. حتی انسان و انسانیترین فعالیتها». این جمله را میتوان خلاصۀ این کتاب دانست. اگر به دنبال فلسفهای متعادل و طبیعتگرا هستید که ریشه در احساسات شما داشته و یا آن را در قضاوت و ارزیابی دخالت دهد، کتاب طبیعت رالف والدو امرسون گزینۀ مناسبی خواهد بود. به خوبی میتوان تاثیر اندیشههای شرقی را در فلسفۀ وی مشاهده نمود. از جهانبینی و طبیعتگرایی سعدی تا منطق حافظ و اندیشههای صوفیانه در باب زندگی. البته حضور چنین مؤلفههایی در اینچنین کتابی تعجب برانگیز است اما با توجه به علاقۀ نویسنده به شرق و حتی نوشتن در ستایش سعدی و حافظ، طرز فلسفی وی را تحت تأثیر قرار داده است. تصور میکنم چنین کتابی برای آمریکای قرن نوزده و بیست بسیار مفیده بوده، بخصوص که از یکسو به کالبدشکافی دین و رویکردهای دانش نیز میپردازد. و یا منظور هنر و جلوههای مختلف هنری را تعریف میکند.
کتاب «طبیعت» از کتابهای پیشرو در مطرح کردن زیباییشناسی است که امروزه در نقد ادبی، مهمترین وظیفهها را بر عهده دارد.
در نگاه نویسنده، طبیعت دارای زبان است و هر یک از عناصر سخنی متناسب با ماهیت خویش میگویند. فعالیتهای انسان نیز طبیعت را آمادهتر میکند تا هر آنچه او در سر دارد را برآورده سازد.
قوت و برتری کتاب را من در جهانبینی والدو امرسون میدانم، چون در عین طبیعتگرایی و اتکا بر عامل احساس و انسان در هستی، گرفتار هستیشناسی خشک و یا ایدهآل اندیشی نمیشود.
از کتاب:
کتاب «طبیعت» از کتابهای پیشرو در مطرح کردن زیباییشناسی است که امروزه در نقد ادبی، مهمترین وظیفهها را بر عهده دارد.
در نگاه نویسنده، طبیعت دارای زبان است و هر یک از عناصر سخنی متناسب با ماهیت خویش میگویند. فعالیتهای انسان نیز طبیعت را آمادهتر میکند تا هر آنچه او در سر دارد را برآورده سازد.
قوت و برتری کتاب را من در جهانبینی والدو امرسون میدانم، چون در عین طبیعتگرایی و اتکا بر عامل احساس و انسان در هستی، گرفتار هستیشناسی خشک و یا ایدهآل اندیشی نمیشود.
از کتاب:
هیچ چیز به تنهایی در کمال زیبایی قرار ندارد و هر چیزی در کل به اوج زیبایی میرسد. یک موضوع مفرد تنها به اندازهای زیباست که به افسون جهان هستی اشاره دارد. شاعر، نقاش، پیکرتراش، موسیقیدان معمار، هریک در پی آن هستند که تلألو جهان را در نقطهای بنمایانند و هر یک در کارهای متعدد خود عشق به زیبایی که محرک اصلی ایشان برای خلاقیت بوده را تصدیق و تأیید میکنند. بدین ترتیب هنر طبیعتی است که در تمام سلولهای بشر وجود دارد و اینگونه در هنر، طبیعت حسب ارادۀ انسانی که از زیبایی آثارش سرشار شده، کار میکند. اینگونه جهان برای تصدیق تمایل به زیبایی در روح زیست مینماید. من این عنصر را غایت بی پایان مینامم.
April 27, 2018
Emerson was an ADD/ADHD nightmare in his writing style. I found myself having to reread sentences/paragraphs a lot. This was read directly after reading Thoreau’s Walden so perhaps I am not being fair to him. Thoreau’s direct and clear writing contrasted Emerson’s and I felt I needed Emerson to define his capitalized words like Mind, Nature etc to make sure we were on the same page so to speak. Emerson’s style reminded me a lot of Mary Baker Eddy.
There were some interesting ideas but I had to read it twice and found it more exhausting than enlightening personally. I fear I shall have to read it again to get much from it. I will try some of his other works to give the man a fair shake. It’s the least I can do.
There were some interesting ideas but I had to read it twice and found it more exhausting than enlightening personally. I fear I shall have to read it again to get much from it. I will try some of his other works to give the man a fair shake. It’s the least I can do.
February 13, 2020
Transcendentalism.
September 8, 2017
This is my first Emerson and it was great. The basic idea is that unlike modern dualistic view of the universe, for Emerson matter and spirit are one, so admiring nature is like admiring Jesus Christ, they both give a spiritual feeling.
Emerson loves nature and he expresses this love in such a beautiful peotic way. Nature for Emerson is a manifestation of God (or God himself, it really depends on your interpretation of the book).
I loved the chapter on nature and language, it was a beautiful (re)discovery of words and idioms derived from nature.
Emerson loves nature and he expresses this love in such a beautiful peotic way. Nature for Emerson is a manifestation of God (or God himself, it really depends on your interpretation of the book).
I loved the chapter on nature and language, it was a beautiful (re)discovery of words and idioms derived from nature.
May 23, 2017
Fascinating!
This essay by Emerson takes up about 56 of this little book's pages, and I feel like I could write about 100 pages on it.
Written in 1836, it's interesting that Emerson starts off with how the current generation never got to face nature at its most pure, that was a task their forefathers got to experience. You know, they had it easy in 1836!
Sometimes he has a thought merging Nature, Man and Spirit that is simple, in sentence structure anyway, and I have to read it several times to come to an understanding with it, other times, a more lengthy discourse seems vaguely comprehensible.
Sometimes I want to blame the 1830s syntax, but most of the time the writing has stood the test of time, so maybe that is not a good excuse.
A few years ago I read Thoreau's 'America' and found it full of similar compelling precepts and ideas. Like 'America', I'm going to read parts of this one over, maybe I'll feel smarter.
This essay by Emerson takes up about 56 of this little book's pages, and I feel like I could write about 100 pages on it.
Written in 1836, it's interesting that Emerson starts off with how the current generation never got to face nature at its most pure, that was a task their forefathers got to experience. You know, they had it easy in 1836!
Sometimes he has a thought merging Nature, Man and Spirit that is simple, in sentence structure anyway, and I have to read it several times to come to an understanding with it, other times, a more lengthy discourse seems vaguely comprehensible.
Sometimes I want to blame the 1830s syntax, but most of the time the writing has stood the test of time, so maybe that is not a good excuse.
A few years ago I read Thoreau's 'America' and found it full of similar compelling precepts and ideas. Like 'America', I'm going to read parts of this one over, maybe I'll feel smarter.
July 14, 2015
This is an important work for Emerson, it defined him and how he viewed his fellow man and the world around him, especially the natural world. But it was difficult to read for me because of the style and of the time and place it was written. This intellectual and philosophical language from the early 19th century was just outside my ability to fully appreciate it's message.
Memorable quote: "Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to Paradise". Emerson
Memorable quote: "Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to Paradise". Emerson
June 18, 2013
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” ~Thoreau
NATURE: After listening to Professor Arnold Weinstein’s 3 lectures on Emerson from Classics of American Literature (The Great Courses) I listened to this essay on LibriVox, a free resource which has many audio recordings of books in the public domain. I was very grateful for Weinstein’s preliminary explanation although I still found myself ‘at sea’ so-to-speak when it came to many of the classical and contemporary references and metaphors. Still the writing is sublime and Emerson illustrates the canvas of imagination with his vocabulary. Even when challenged, my senses were bathed, soothed and massaged by the lyrical descriptions in the text. Emerson is a delight to listen to (thank you LibriVox!) and I am so grateful to have encountered him, Nature and a new perspective on Nature.
WALKING by Thoreau might just as easily be called ‘Nature’. He considered it his introductory work, essential to understanding everything else he wrote. For Thoreau, walking is an Art, as necessary to Mind and Spirit as Body. From this essay we may gather, walking for pleasure was not a common practice in Concorde of the 1850s; most probably the average person not having the leisure for it. He expresses rare sympathy for women of that time when he writes about their lack of access to getting out of doors on a regular basis: “How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do not stand it at all.” Thoreau’s real passion is to be out in nature—moving the body—which translates into walking. As he elaborates, we learn that where we walk (fields and woods), how often we walk (almost every day) and direction of travel (nothing so mundane as a destination but rather going east for history and west for freedom) are the essentials to be considered when walking in nature.
Back in Thoreau's day Americans were too busy earning a living to walk as he suggested. Now most people are too caught up in competitive sports, expensive Disneyland vacations and the more-is-better mentality to appreciate his message. More’s the pity.
NATURE: After listening to Professor Arnold Weinstein’s 3 lectures on Emerson from Classics of American Literature (The Great Courses) I listened to this essay on LibriVox, a free resource which has many audio recordings of books in the public domain. I was very grateful for Weinstein’s preliminary explanation although I still found myself ‘at sea’ so-to-speak when it came to many of the classical and contemporary references and metaphors. Still the writing is sublime and Emerson illustrates the canvas of imagination with his vocabulary. Even when challenged, my senses were bathed, soothed and massaged by the lyrical descriptions in the text. Emerson is a delight to listen to (thank you LibriVox!) and I am so grateful to have encountered him, Nature and a new perspective on Nature.
WALKING by Thoreau might just as easily be called ‘Nature’. He considered it his introductory work, essential to understanding everything else he wrote. For Thoreau, walking is an Art, as necessary to Mind and Spirit as Body. From this essay we may gather, walking for pleasure was not a common practice in Concorde of the 1850s; most probably the average person not having the leisure for it. He expresses rare sympathy for women of that time when he writes about their lack of access to getting out of doors on a regular basis: “How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do not stand it at all.” Thoreau’s real passion is to be out in nature—moving the body—which translates into walking. As he elaborates, we learn that where we walk (fields and woods), how often we walk (almost every day) and direction of travel (nothing so mundane as a destination but rather going east for history and west for freedom) are the essentials to be considered when walking in nature.
Back in Thoreau's day Americans were too busy earning a living to walk as he suggested. Now most people are too caught up in competitive sports, expensive Disneyland vacations and the more-is-better mentality to appreciate his message. More’s the pity.
November 9, 2020
I had it for a school assignment. This is far from something I would personally choose to read on a foggy Monday on Nov.
Basically, it all comes down to the "man" and how he can change whatever if he puts his mind too it. (while other themes were sprinkled over the frosting, that were related to nature as a system and man as projection of a god like being).
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Basically, it all comes down to the "man" and how he can change whatever if he puts his mind too it. (while other themes were sprinkled over the frosting, that were related to nature as a system and man as projection of a god like being).
Instagram\\my Blog\\
October 10, 2016
This actually had some really nice quotes and thoughts but it just didn't really grab my interest.
August 13, 2025
this was actually so fire……he is right! forget this english phd I am going to find myself again 🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️
February 23, 2015
This was an uneven book. The beginning and the end are easy to read and thought provoking, while the middle is dense and obtuse. These essays are Emerson's attempts to understand why nature is valuable and what our relationship to nature should be. This is a lofty and noble goal, but I think he ultimately fell short.
He starts off by stating his premise: that being in nature gives humans unparallelled peace and happiness. He then grapples with to the reasons behind this truth in subsequent chapters. However, this is where the train seems to go off track. Emerson's writing style becomes difficult to follow and academic. The essay becomes a philosophical treatise. Unfortunately, many of his arguments are flawed, but that would not necessarily make this book less enjoyable if it wasn't so convoluted. Emerson writes philosophy like a poet. He tries to turn logic into flowery prose, which, rather than elevating his premises, renders them opaque. He tries to right the ship at the end by bringing it back to his original point and explaining how we should relate to nature in simple terms, but it is too little, too late for me.
I also took some umbrage with Emerson's ideas as well. On the one hand, Emerson, like other transcendentalists, tries to convince people that the mechanistic worldview of industrial society, wherein nature has only utilitarian value as a commodity, is flawed and vulgar. However, he does not seem to believe that the dualism, the separation, between humans an nature upon which industrial consumer culture is predicated, is a problem. In fact, he seems to view it as inherent and critical to restore equilibrium in the world. It is our place, he argues, to dominate nature. He may see us as the "stewards of Creation" of Genesis. Thus, while he believes that it is wrong to dominate nature because we see it as property and a resource, there seems to be no problem in dominating it with respect in wonder. Humans are the pinnacle of evolution and so it is our role to dominate nature. But to dominate implies submission and inequality, if not outright abuse, which hardly sounds like the making of a healthy loving relationship. I do not believe it is possible to mend our relationship with nature and truly love it without first addressing and eliminating the separation between us and it. We are equal players in the drama of life on earth, not some higher observers.
Even though Emerson sees beauty in nature as being a more valuable than its raw resources, he seems to think that the value of this beauty is not intrinsic. It is only valuable insomuch that it inspires and serves as a backdrop to human creation and greatness. We humans are still the main purpose, the teleological end of the natural world in his eyes.
I first though it ironic that Emerson called native peoples, who lived as a part of nature rather than apart from nature, savages. However, I now see it as being demonstrative of his view that the separation between humans and nature to be essential and the natural result of evolution. Thus, he sees them as lesser beings because they still use nature directly and do not separate themselves from it. While Emerson suggests that nature is not just a resource to be used but a reflection of and imbued with God's divinity, he also does not believe that has value beyond that. Thus, nature is only valuable because it is imbued with spiritual meaning which we assign. Again, this likely a product of his religious background. This notion again conflicts with the worldviews of many indigenous cultures. While they too believed that the natural world was imbued with spiritual meaning, it was also valuable intrinsically. This world was not a steppingstone to a better, higher spiritual realm. Thus, it was not something that could be abused and commodified.
I suppose that I need to view this work within the contexts of Emerson's time. Nature was still largely seen as a dangerous wild place that was to be subdued and put to productive use. It was the age of mechanization and industrialization. 80% of New England's forests were felled and the western border of the young nation was spreading westward as its citizens' hunger for resources grew. Thus, Emerson's view of unmanaged natural landscapes as being beautiful, wondrous places that could provide love, affection, and inspiration was probably pretty revolutionary for the time. Furthermore, his belief that humans are above nature is probably a function of his background in Judeo-Christian religion, whose Great Chain of Being establishes the hierarchy of Creation.
Finally, I take issue with his last chapter as a scientist. He claims that empirical science is an imperfect lens through which to view the world and will never allow us to fully comprehend it. Although I agree with his premise, I disagree with the conclusion, which is that poetry and art is a better method of interpreting our place and purpose. Physical science and the arts are two equally valid ways of understanding Creation. Why do we need to choose one? Science deals with fact and art with truth. Both our essential to our survival and well-being. Emerson says that the "half-sight of science," is not enough to allow us to fully see and appreciate the splendor of nature. I tend to agree, though I would also say that art is also a "half-sight." We need both lenses, a pair of bifocals if I may, to truly understand the world. Without fact we cannot survive in this world and without truth, I would not care to.
Well, you caught me rambling. In short, I did not particularly enjoy this book. However, it did make me think deeply about my relationship to nature, so I suppose it served its purpose in that sense.
P.S. I find it mildly amusing that Emerson identifies the concept of different types of ecosystem services (provisioning, regulation, supporting, and cultural) in his chapter on Commodity long before the concept became accepted in ecological science. He also seems to hint at descent with modification in the Discipline chapter about a quarter century before Darwin's The Origin of the Species was published...
He starts off by stating his premise: that being in nature gives humans unparallelled peace and happiness. He then grapples with to the reasons behind this truth in subsequent chapters. However, this is where the train seems to go off track. Emerson's writing style becomes difficult to follow and academic. The essay becomes a philosophical treatise. Unfortunately, many of his arguments are flawed, but that would not necessarily make this book less enjoyable if it wasn't so convoluted. Emerson writes philosophy like a poet. He tries to turn logic into flowery prose, which, rather than elevating his premises, renders them opaque. He tries to right the ship at the end by bringing it back to his original point and explaining how we should relate to nature in simple terms, but it is too little, too late for me.
I also took some umbrage with Emerson's ideas as well. On the one hand, Emerson, like other transcendentalists, tries to convince people that the mechanistic worldview of industrial society, wherein nature has only utilitarian value as a commodity, is flawed and vulgar. However, he does not seem to believe that the dualism, the separation, between humans an nature upon which industrial consumer culture is predicated, is a problem. In fact, he seems to view it as inherent and critical to restore equilibrium in the world. It is our place, he argues, to dominate nature. He may see us as the "stewards of Creation" of Genesis. Thus, while he believes that it is wrong to dominate nature because we see it as property and a resource, there seems to be no problem in dominating it with respect in wonder. Humans are the pinnacle of evolution and so it is our role to dominate nature. But to dominate implies submission and inequality, if not outright abuse, which hardly sounds like the making of a healthy loving relationship. I do not believe it is possible to mend our relationship with nature and truly love it without first addressing and eliminating the separation between us and it. We are equal players in the drama of life on earth, not some higher observers.
Even though Emerson sees beauty in nature as being a more valuable than its raw resources, he seems to think that the value of this beauty is not intrinsic. It is only valuable insomuch that it inspires and serves as a backdrop to human creation and greatness. We humans are still the main purpose, the teleological end of the natural world in his eyes.
I first though it ironic that Emerson called native peoples, who lived as a part of nature rather than apart from nature, savages. However, I now see it as being demonstrative of his view that the separation between humans and nature to be essential and the natural result of evolution. Thus, he sees them as lesser beings because they still use nature directly and do not separate themselves from it. While Emerson suggests that nature is not just a resource to be used but a reflection of and imbued with God's divinity, he also does not believe that has value beyond that. Thus, nature is only valuable because it is imbued with spiritual meaning which we assign. Again, this likely a product of his religious background. This notion again conflicts with the worldviews of many indigenous cultures. While they too believed that the natural world was imbued with spiritual meaning, it was also valuable intrinsically. This world was not a steppingstone to a better, higher spiritual realm. Thus, it was not something that could be abused and commodified.
I suppose that I need to view this work within the contexts of Emerson's time. Nature was still largely seen as a dangerous wild place that was to be subdued and put to productive use. It was the age of mechanization and industrialization. 80% of New England's forests were felled and the western border of the young nation was spreading westward as its citizens' hunger for resources grew. Thus, Emerson's view of unmanaged natural landscapes as being beautiful, wondrous places that could provide love, affection, and inspiration was probably pretty revolutionary for the time. Furthermore, his belief that humans are above nature is probably a function of his background in Judeo-Christian religion, whose Great Chain of Being establishes the hierarchy of Creation.
Finally, I take issue with his last chapter as a scientist. He claims that empirical science is an imperfect lens through which to view the world and will never allow us to fully comprehend it. Although I agree with his premise, I disagree with the conclusion, which is that poetry and art is a better method of interpreting our place and purpose. Physical science and the arts are two equally valid ways of understanding Creation. Why do we need to choose one? Science deals with fact and art with truth. Both our essential to our survival and well-being. Emerson says that the "half-sight of science," is not enough to allow us to fully see and appreciate the splendor of nature. I tend to agree, though I would also say that art is also a "half-sight." We need both lenses, a pair of bifocals if I may, to truly understand the world. Without fact we cannot survive in this world and without truth, I would not care to.
Well, you caught me rambling. In short, I did not particularly enjoy this book. However, it did make me think deeply about my relationship to nature, so I suppose it served its purpose in that sense.
P.S. I find it mildly amusing that Emerson identifies the concept of different types of ecosystem services (provisioning, regulation, supporting, and cultural) in his chapter on Commodity long before the concept became accepted in ecological science. He also seems to hint at descent with modification in the Discipline chapter about a quarter century before Darwin's The Origin of the Species was published...
May 2, 2013
My favorite quotes: "These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us."
"Cities give not the human senses room enough."
"Nature is loved by what is best in us."
"Cities give not the human senses room enough."
"Nature is loved by what is best in us."
April 5, 2014
Its poetry, pure unadulterated poetry of nature.
November 24, 2016
"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."
Emerson's cadence and poetic influences add a pleasing finish to the tone of this essay. Despite the name of the piece, the author seems every bit as preoccupied with the supernatural as he is the natural. (I'd maintain that, from certain perspectives, the interchangeability and additional layer of wonderment does make sense.) Emerson isn't shy about his spiritual perspective. And that perspective clearly influences his ability to pan out and take reverent note of both the vast and the minute.
"To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again."
I wasn't prepared to find so many poignant quotes. I also wasn't expecting to find Emerson's commentary quite so thought-provokingly beautiful.
Favorite Quotes:
"A man is a god in ruins."
"Words are finite organs of the infinite mind."
"An action is the perfection and publication of thought."
Emerson's cadence and poetic influences add a pleasing finish to the tone of this essay. Despite the name of the piece, the author seems every bit as preoccupied with the supernatural as he is the natural. (I'd maintain that, from certain perspectives, the interchangeability and additional layer of wonderment does make sense.) Emerson isn't shy about his spiritual perspective. And that perspective clearly influences his ability to pan out and take reverent note of both the vast and the minute.
"To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again."
I wasn't prepared to find so many poignant quotes. I also wasn't expecting to find Emerson's commentary quite so thought-provokingly beautiful.
Favorite Quotes:
"A man is a god in ruins."
"Words are finite organs of the infinite mind."
"An action is the perfection and publication of thought."
March 17, 2018
This is probably the best thing I have read in my life. I will review it later this week.
The third reading renders it much much more magical. In two consecutive years, it has not lost one spark of intensity and brilliance.
The third reading renders it much much more magical. In two consecutive years, it has not lost one spark of intensity and brilliance.
September 6, 2025
Com he dit repetits cops tinc amnèsia i no recordo els primers capítols però no sé si és que em van agradar molt o que els vaig idealitzar per llegir-me'ls a la muntanya perdut en un refugi a Andorra. En fi, deu ser lo primer perquè vaig repetir l'experiència amb la segona meitat del llibre i no vaig entendre una sobirana merda. Què cony m'expliques d'idealisme i hòsties jo volia sentir-me un amb els cabirols i els arbres i tots els éssers de deunostrosinyor.
January 21, 2021
He estado leyendo varios ensayos de los grandes pensadores de la Naturaleza. En este ensayo de Emerson, el realiza un profundo ejercicio de análisis filosófico en que trata de entender los diferentes aspectos del ser humano en relación con la Naturaleza. En las páginas de este escrito encontré pasajes muy bellos e inspiradores, sin embargo sustancialmente no llegó a convencerme. Para Emerson, La Naturaleza es un instrumento de Dios o la Divinidad suprema, que más allá de la satisfacción material de nuestras necesidades, sirve que podamos entender importantes lecciones, en los planos espiritual, filosófico, artístico, etc.
Más allá del tema religioso, que no me crea conflicto, está el antropocentrismo de Emerson. Ese sentimiento de que, lo que nos rodea, cumple un fin instrumental para el ser humano o ha sido puesto allí con un fin para nosotros.
Mi visión personal está muy representada por el hermoso poema de Sara Teasdale "There will come soft rains", mi actitud hacia la Naturaleza es más contemplativa y de aprendizaje por eso también amo los sencillos poemas de Mary Oliver.
Emerson influenció a importantes pensadores de la Naturaleza, sin embargo sus divagaciones se me hicieron áridas y forzadas en muchos aspectos. Me ha gustado mucho más leer por ejemplo a John Burroughs.
Aparte del contenido, debo decir que esta edición de Nordica, es una joya gracias a la calidad del libro, las ilustraciones y el acompañamiento de una serie de hermosos poemas de Emerson.
Más allá del tema religioso, que no me crea conflicto, está el antropocentrismo de Emerson. Ese sentimiento de que, lo que nos rodea, cumple un fin instrumental para el ser humano o ha sido puesto allí con un fin para nosotros.
Mi visión personal está muy representada por el hermoso poema de Sara Teasdale "There will come soft rains", mi actitud hacia la Naturaleza es más contemplativa y de aprendizaje por eso también amo los sencillos poemas de Mary Oliver.
Emerson influenció a importantes pensadores de la Naturaleza, sin embargo sus divagaciones se me hicieron áridas y forzadas en muchos aspectos. Me ha gustado mucho más leer por ejemplo a John Burroughs.
Aparte del contenido, debo decir que esta edición de Nordica, es una joya gracias a la calidad del libro, las ilustraciones y el acompañamiento de una serie de hermosos poemas de Emerson.
January 30, 2025
this will probably be one of, if not my only 5-star read of 2025. I’ve been reading it over and over again, and each time I find new meanings from lines I barely gave space to on the first read.
there’s such a beautiful reverence and respect of the natural world in this essay that goes straight to the heart and makes the reader get up and go outside.
there’s such a beautiful reverence and respect of the natural world in this essay that goes straight to the heart and makes the reader get up and go outside.
March 4, 2024
I am single-handedly putting the trans in transcendentalism
Read
March 1, 2023It had been years since I read the poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson as a sensitive youth who wanted to leave society behind and hit the woods. Since then I have lost the tolerance I had for New England transcendentalism, but maybe I should reconsider it. This really was a gorgeous essay. Perhaps there are complaints as to its lack of "content," but that's missing the point of 19th Century belles-lettres. The bastard had a way with words, and it did, in its own odd way, make me want to traipse through the North American forest yet again.
August 20, 2023
Respectable
May 14, 2022
a paper currency is employed, when there is no bullion in the vaults
My enthusiasm climaxed at the beginning of the chapter on language. From then on, I was disappointed to find out the essay takes off to eye-rolling heights of spiritualistic hubris.
Emerson correctly realizes that "words are signs of natural facts". In particular, spiritual concepts unavoidably borrow their names from natural ones:
Every word which is used to express a moral or intellectual fact, if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance. Right means straight; wrong means twisted. Spirit primarily means wind; transgression, the crossing of a line; supercilious, the raising of the eyebrow. We say the heart to express emotion, the head to denote thought; and thought and emotion are words borrowed from sensible things, and now appropriated to spiritual nature. Most of the process by which this transformation is made, is hidden from us in the remote time when language was framed; but the same tendency may be daily observed in children. Children and savages use only nouns or names of things, which they convert into verbs, and apply to analogous mental acts.
Why not take it one step further and conclude that such ideas have no direct representation in language because they have no natural representation at all? I.e. that they're fictions whose existence goes hand in hand with their (arbitrary) linguistic representation? That it doesn't take a corrupt character for "old words [to be] perverted to stand for things which are not", but everyone is liable to fabricate and cling to such simulacra as if there were any gold to back up the banknotes?
I quite enjoyed the bucolic preamble though:
The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. [...] The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and his bed.
[...]
The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. [...] Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both.
June 26, 2021
Transcendentalism has never been my cup of tea. Here, there are some good ideas, but there are also a lot of ideas I disliked. I didn't find myself particularly fascinated by anything, although there are multiple quotes that are pretty. I definitely found some flaws. My main reason of distaste was from how Emerson relies on religion. Christianity, of course. I want to be clear that being Christian and religious in general is by no means bad. I'm just looking at Emerson's lack of variety in his reasoning. I, as an atheist, find it difficult to connect to transcendentalism because of this main idea of using nature to transcend to God. The aforementioned excessively Christian reasoning and inconscise writing lowered my rating tremendously.
I will say that the "Idealism" chapter reminded me of Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. Emerson definitely saw a "Truth", and those other two men did too. This made it easier to connect transcendentalism to Idealism. Criticism of epiricism immediately reminded me of David Hume. The point here is that Nature is easily connectable to early philosophers of Western Europe, which makes complete sense for American philosophy is deeply influenced by that subcontinent. That is definitely the most fascinating part of this essay rather than the actual ideas within.
P.S.
What's interesting is that I came across Idealism by trying to study Giovanni Gentile. That man was in Mussolini's cabinet and is considered the father of fascism. Hegel influenced Gentile and Marx in two very, very different ways. The conclusion here is that Hegel and Kant are incredibly abstract and difficult to decipher. I mean, communism and fascism are historically juxtaposed to each other!
The true conclusion, however, is that you wasted your time by reading Vanshi's excessively dense review.
I will say that the "Idealism" chapter reminded me of Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. Emerson definitely saw a "Truth", and those other two men did too. This made it easier to connect transcendentalism to Idealism. Criticism of epiricism immediately reminded me of David Hume. The point here is that Nature is easily connectable to early philosophers of Western Europe, which makes complete sense for American philosophy is deeply influenced by that subcontinent. That is definitely the most fascinating part of this essay rather than the actual ideas within.
P.S.
What's interesting is that I came across Idealism by trying to study Giovanni Gentile. That man was in Mussolini's cabinet and is considered the father of fascism. Hegel influenced Gentile and Marx in two very, very different ways. The conclusion here is that Hegel and Kant are incredibly abstract and difficult to decipher. I mean, communism and fascism are historically juxtaposed to each other!
The true conclusion, however, is that you wasted your time by reading Vanshi's excessively dense review.
December 26, 2022
I’ve been working with this for weeks. Not a fan. An intuitive sense and rhetoric passing itself off as Philosophy. Sorry to be the outlier here.
September 24, 2019
Another reread for me and though I joke with my students about the kumbaya-esque nature here, there's something within this piece that reminds us all we are too rushed to notice. Maybe because I grew up somewhere I could see the stars, where I fell asleep to the sound of the crickets and peepers (sooo loud sometimes) rather than the sounds of sirens and broken bottles I hear now that I connected with this so deeply. Maybe it was just the current need for serenity and to rethink what it means to be in this world, but Emerson had a far stronger impact on me now than the many times I read this before...
May 3, 2021
Pues nada, que este me ha venido muy grande, lo reconozco.
Si os soy sincera, lo cogí por los dibujitos 😅.
El señor Emerson dice cosas muy interesantes y bonitas, pero son tan filosóficas y tan cultas que a mi mente superficial de rubia ha llegado un momento que le ha dado lo mismo lo que leía ...si ya con ver en la sinopsis que usan la palabra "incontrovertible" me tenía que haber dado una pista...no sé lo que significa 😂
Conclusión, las ilustraciones son maravillosas, pero el texto me ha aburrido una barbaridad.
Si os soy sincera, lo cogí por los dibujitos 😅.
El señor Emerson dice cosas muy interesantes y bonitas, pero son tan filosóficas y tan cultas que a mi mente superficial de rubia ha llegado un momento que le ha dado lo mismo lo que leía ...si ya con ver en la sinopsis que usan la palabra "incontrovertible" me tenía que haber dado una pista...no sé lo que significa 😂
Conclusión, las ilustraciones son maravillosas, pero el texto me ha aburrido una barbaridad.
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