Discovering the Self in Nature

In the first half of the nineteenth century Americans became interested in the wilderness and inspired by it. Then Many American writers and Artists began to write about discovering the self in nature.

One on these writers was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister. He wrote his first book “Nature” and published it anonymously in 1836. One of his most famous essays was “Self-Reliance.” "Self Reliance" was a great essay about each individual being able to have their own thoughts and ideas. He talks about only relying on yourself, being your own person, and to avoid conformity of society. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Self Reliance

  

"Self Reliance" is one of Emerson's most famous essays and a really great essay as well.

Here is an excerpt from "Self Reliance": 

"Ne te quaesiveris extra." ("Seek no one besides yourself.")

"Man is his own star; and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man,

Commands all light, all influence, all fate;

Nothing to him falls early or too late.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."

http://mrgunnar.net/english.cfm?subpage=348353 

Henry David Thoreau was another writer during this time who viewed nature as “…vulnerable to human encroachment.” His understanding of the vulnerability and humanities role in conserving or degrading the environment shows his endurance influence on American literary culture as a social conscience and spokesman for the environment. One of his famous essays is "Civil Disobedience." His essay "Civil Disobedience" was a great essay about men letting conscience be their govern them and not the government.

Henry David Thoreau

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The Poet Walt Whitman was a symbol for the ambitious American Self in the nineteenth century. He revolutionized American literature by linking Romantic, Transcendental, and Realist movements. He was a New Yorker but gained fame with his portraits of the city’s environment and people. Celebrated urgency and vigor caused by the urban atmosphere. He wrote “Leaves of Grass.”

Walt Whitman

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               Sayre, Henry M. Discovering the Humanities: Second Edition. 2010. Textbook.