This blog is just a collection of my impression on the essay, rather than attempting to make a point. Please excuse the seemingly fragmented manner in which I convey my thoughts below.

There is a very comprehensive lens through which Emerson attempts to have the reader contemplate on the idea of nature: to view it is not as an absolute substance, but as a “phenomenon” (Nature, Chapter VI). I am very much compelled to the more expansive idea of nature that it is not simply the physical landscape or the environment that is untouched by mankind, but rather everything that makes up the universe, the material and immaterial. From physical matter to its connection with our perception and feelings of reality, how the soul interacts with the world.

I particularly like the example of poetry, such as Shakespeare’s poem in the same chapter:

“Take those lips away
Which so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes,—the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn.”

Through these samples of poems Emerson brings to us the idea that nature, or the perception of it through the eyes of the soul, is a form of communication in which the attractions of the physical world reciprocates the soul’s desire to perceive beauty. As poets tend to use figurative language to associate one thing with another – in this case the eyes of a person that is associated with the image of dawn’s light. It’s a spiritual connection that brings two seemingly unrelated things in nature together.

What I find troubling is how Emerson seems to advocate for so individualistic a way to approach/perceive the natural world but he also speaks of the “permanence of nature”, that “we are not built like a ship to be tossed, but like a house to stand,” (Chapter VI). He is admitting to the idea that we as humans have been so successful in ensuring our survival because we understand how the natural world works and build tools/structure to adapt to this world, and yet to me his argument is that it wouldn’t matter if things worked differently. If I interpret the text correctly, there is a lot of issues that comes with this stance.

At this point I must admit that the text has become lost on me due to the amount of content and context that I’ve consumed in such a short amount of time reading it.

Between James Fenimore Cooper’s ideals in The Last of the Mohicans and Emerson’s essay: the emphasis on learning and feeling God’s presence through observation of the natural world and the surrounding environment. It’s one of the main emphases of Transcendentalism. While one might think of it as a very Hawkeye-like mindset, it is the only common ground that Emerson finds with Cooper’s “heroic” character. Hawkeye is otherwise a person favoring the wisdom of experience and logical reasoning (in his own blatantly racist way) and is one to suppress his own feelings, which I think is conflicting with Emerson’s Transcendentalist ideals: feelings over logic.