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3. Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson and his images
Emerson's earliest reference to an essay on nature occurs in his journal for 1833. Three years later, in 1836, he anonymously published his now-famous Nature. It was his first major work, and it continues to be his best known. The essay met with good critical reception but with little support from the reading public. He reprinted it in his 1849 edition of Nature; Addresses, and Lectures.
The essay's epigraphs will vary according to which edition of Nature is anthologized. In the 1836 edition, for example, Emerson introduced the essay with a quotation from the Roman philosopher Plotinus, but when he reprinted the essay in 1849, he omitted Plotinus' poetic line and inserted one of his own poems. Some of today's literary anthologies do not include either epigraph; others include both.
The 1836 epigraph from Plotinus reads: "Nature is but an image or imitation of wisdom, the last thing of the soul; Nature being a thing which doth only do, but not know." This poetic line emphasizes a theme that runs throughout the essay: Nature does not have a personality of its own. When we say, for instance, that nature is upset because a storm is violently raging outside, we are projecting a human emotion onto nature that it itself does not possess.
Emerson's six-line poem that he uses as the epigraph for the 1849 edition asserts the interconnectedness of all things:
A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings;
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose;
And, striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form. [2p3]
Nature, in the images of a rose and a worm, speaks directly to individuals. Within these six lines, Emerson introduces various themes found in the essay, including the theme of the chain that binds together all of nature. Often referred to as the Great Chain of Being, this concept outlines the theory of evolution — another theme of his — that would shock the world when Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859. Note that the worm in Emerson's poem strives to become a perfect form, a human being.
Unlike many of Emerson's essays, Nature is extremely long and is divided into an introduction and eight chapters, or sections. Readers should number each paragraph in pencil for easy reference throughout these Notes and in the classroom. [6]
In both Nature and "The American Scholar," Emerson advances the theory that all language is based on physical images. For him, etymology, the study of the history of words, traces words' meanings back to original concrete pictures and actions. Especially in Nature, he maintains that objects are a kind of language that represents spiritual ideas; objects can be "read" for inspiration and understanding. Hence, it is no surprise to find that Emerson characteristically expresses his ideas in vivid images and metaphors. The most dominant of these include images of water, light and fire, and unity and fragmentation. [10]
Images of Water
Probably the most pervasive metaphor throughout Emerson's writings is the image of water. The fluidity of water, its clarity, and its shapeless character seem to have fascinated him. Water has several meanings, all of which relate to basic concepts associated with independence, transcendence, and spiritual insight. In Nature, Emerson asks, "Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour and is not reminded of the flux of all things?" The flowing river not only reminds the thoughtful person of the ongoing flow of time, it is a figure for the passing days of an individual's life. In "The Over-Soul," in which images of water abound, he writes, "Man is a stream whose source is hidden," a statement that emphasizes the mystery he finds in each person. [9]
At other times, he pictures life itself as the river, with the individual person borne along on its current. Such is the idea expressed in "The Over-Soul" when he urges us, "Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail." This statement, part of a discussion of the impropriety of needing to know what the future will bring, and an exhortation to trust in spiritual guidance, conveys Emerson's sense of life as an adventure. He asks us to take risks and to exercise independent thought and imagination rather than safely follow convention. [9]
If the individual is frequently imagined as moving in or on a river, the universe is pictured as a vast, immeasurable ocean. A key metaphor in Emerson's iconography is the river emptying into the sea and becoming part of it. This figure of speech expresses the fundamental notion of transcendence: the individual uniting with the universal mind — the Over-Soul. Emerson writes in "The Over-Soul" that the soul's apprehension of truth is "an ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life." He emphasizes the union of individual and universal consciousness: "The only mode of obtaining an answer to these questions of the senses is to forego all low curiosity, and, accepting the tide of being which floats us into the secret of nature, work and live, work and live, and all unawares the advancing soul has built and forged for itself a new condition, and the question and the answer are one."
As the great sea of consciousness unites the individual with the mysteries of the universe, it also creates a communion between all of humanity. Thus, in "The Over-Soul," Emerson expresses an almost ecstatic sense of the beautiful union of all people: "The heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one." Such participation allows us to partake of the divine life that penetrates and permeates the universe.
Another favorite source of imagery for Emerson is light and fire. While water images often evoke a sense of time and a calm, blissful union with the universal, images of light and fire are associated with emotional warmth, vigor, and strong, manly feelings.
In order to help us focus more clearly on nature, Emerson distinguishes nature from art. Art, he says, is natural objects or materials that we alter for our own purposes — for example, a statue or a picture. That said, however, this distinction is relatively inconsequential to Emerson. [2.p2]
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