Change Through Thought- American Romantics and Radicals

Change Through Thought- American Romantics and Radicals

Many of the American romantics and radicals seek to inspire change through thought before action. First, Ralph Waldo Emerson promoted his ideas on the importance of nature and self-reliance. Second, Henry David Thoreau demonstrated his ideas on civil disobedience as well as sustainable independent living. Third, Margaret Fuller promoted her ideas of female equality. Fourth, Frederick Douglass showed a side of slavery that had not been seen before. Finally, Walt Whitman’s new style of writing changed writing and perceptions of America. None of these people promoted immediate change. Instead, they all inspired and promoted thought about their various topics, and hoped, through thought, that there would be change.

In one of Emerson’s initial writings, Nature, written in 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that people should look at the world differently, compared to how they normally did. He believes that there is more to nature than meets the eye. His writings presented the idea that “Nature…was less a spectacle to be seen that it was a text to be read…” (Myerson 124). One needed to interpret nature to be able to live a true life. In order to do this Emerson recommends the idea of the eye. He says that:

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of...

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...d the way people see things, and list things. He repeated over and over again situations that made everybody equal to each other. He was a revolutionary, and he did all this without directly addressing the issue. He inspired people to think about these issues and he let them find the answers. These people all brought about change in the United States, and they all did this through their influence of thought. We would be nowhere today without these revolutionaries of change.

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

New York: Oxford, 1987.

Myerson, Joel, ed. Transcendentalism A Reader. New York: Oxford University Press,

2000.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and “Civil Disobedience”. New York: Signet Classics,

1999.

Warner, Michael, ed. The Portable Walt Whitman. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.