1820-1865: Short Answer Quiz

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature


  1. Near the beginning of Nature, Emerson describes the fundamental encounter between the soul and its sense of the limitless quality of its surroundings: “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 eyeball. I am nothing. I see all”. Paraphrase what Emerson is saying in this passage. Try to account for the contradictory statements of bigness and smallness in the last two sentences.

  1. Describe the relationship between human beings and nature, according to Emerson. Why does he consider things that are a part of the natural environment and things that people have made to be both a part of nature? What does he achieve by redefining these key concepts?

  1. Nature has been described as a forerunner of the reform writings of the antebellum years. Describe for the following passage how the “corruption of language” leads to the corruption of people, and demonstrate how this work seems to be fighting that corruption: “A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth and his desire to communicate it without loss. The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language”.

  1. What does Emerson mean by the “ethical character” of nature in the following passage?: “Sensible objects conform to the premonitions of Reason and reflect the conscience. All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature. Therefore is nature glorious with form, color, and motion…Therefore is nature always the ally of Religion: lends all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment…. This ethical character so penetrates the bone and marrow of nature, as to seem the end for which it was made” (1120). How does Emerson see the “discipline” of nature inspiring us to become better people?

  1. Nature ends with the advice to “Build, therefore your own world” (1134). After comparing the prospects of common and great men of history, he recommends these men pursue their lives with a renewed sense of their relationship with nature. But since he has already described the powers of the imagination as sufficient only to describe or represent the world differently, what path does Emerson advise for the common person unhappy with his lot?



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