Transcendentalism In Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature

In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writing “Nature” there are many aspects of transcendentalism emphasized. Emerson begins by talking about the stars in the sky. When he writes “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how men would believe and adore… But every night come out these envoys of beauty” (242) he is explaining how much people take the stars for granted. The stars appear in the sky night after night but people never take a moment to stop and stare. Emerson believes that if they were to disappear for a thousand years then reappear for one night people would notice them and talk about that one night for years to come. He writes about how the stars are always present but never quite in reach. Unlike the stars nature is always right outside a persons door.

When Emerson says “It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood cutter from the tree of the poet” (242) he is explaining the fact that nature looks different to everyone. What one wood cutter may see as a stick of timber a poet might see has a beautiful tree. He believes that people can own land and they can own property but a person can never own the landscape, “There is a property in the horizon which no man has… give no title.” (242) Nature can only be seen and enjoyed by people whose inward and outward senses are completely adjusted to each other. When Emerson writes “In the presence of nature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows” (242) he is explaining how nature makes a man act like a child. Being in the presence of nature makes a man forget any problem they could have and brings them the happiness, worriless joy of a child. He believes that being in the woods returns a person to reason and faith, that “nothing can befall me in life-no disgrace, no calamity… which nature cannot repair.”