Emerson "Nature"

If time permits,  we will begin a discussion of "Nature".

HMWK:  "Nature" READING questions 

Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite spaces, - 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."

"Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today, we will EXAMINE the key points in Emerson's essay which you have read and annotated for homework.  At the end of class, you will be EVALUATING how practical or idealistic Emerson's  claims are for living one's life in the "real world."

EQ: What are the key claims of Emerson's "Self Reliance" and how relevant are his arguments for living in the "real world"?

The essay on "Self-Reliance"  can be classified as ARGUMENTATION/PERSUASION ( that is the mode of discourse).  Emerson makes several CLAIMS regarding the importance of self-reliance in the essay. 

"Ne te quaesiveris extra." OR "Do not look outside of yourself."

Some of Emerson's CLAIMS are:

1. The genuine self expresses the universal truth--GENIUS, THE OVERSOUL (man, nature, God)

2. One must develop the self and follow one's inner law--INDIVIDUALISM, SELF WORTH

3. There are dangers to conformity--NON-CONFORMITY, SOCIETAL DISAPPROVAL

4. Self help vs. prayer --

5. Travel is less important than growth at home--VISION OF AMERICA

6. Self reliance will lead one to be at peace

In small groups (or with a partner), find the textual EVIDENCE  that supports one of these CLAIMS by quoting from the essay.

We will then share out our findings to the class, and finally, discuss and evaluate Emerson's argument.  Are you convinced?  If yes, WHY (DEFEND)?  If no, WHY (CHALLENGE)?  If a little of both, WHY (QUALIFY)? Consider how "revolutionary" this philosophy may have been for its time.

HMWK:  Read and annotate "Nature"

Emerson/Common Themes of Transcendentalism

AGENDA:
Discuss Self-Reliance and Nature

What is transcendentalism?

Video:http://study.com/academy/lesson/transcendentalism-impact-on-american-literature.html

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=transcendentalism+video&FORM=VIRE16&adlt=strict#view=detail&mid=34FFBEB26E483BD0741634FFBEB26E483BD07416

Transcendentalism for Dummies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWQRwS64Mtw

shmoop:

What Ralph Waldo Emerson did... and why you should care

In the age before the internet, TV, movies and Twilight novels, one of the most popular forms of entertainment was the lecture. Americans would pack auditoriums and lyceums to hear speakers hold forth on topics from science to religion. In the half century between the 1830s and the 1880s, no speaker was more popular than Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Sage of Concord.

Trained as a Unitarian minister, Emerson ultimately became America's top secular preacher and the father of the philosophical movement known as transcendentalism. Emerson believed that true spiritual revelation came from instinct, and encouraged people to slow down, listen up and trust the voice within. "A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within," Emerson wrote in his essay Self-Reliance, "more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages."¹

Emerson's uniquely American philosophies were not without fault. His me-first, go-your-own-way boosterism could be interpreted as self-centeredness, a trait Americans are often accused of having. In other words, one critic wrote, "Emerson must be held blameless for the fact that his exaltations on individual get-up-and-go have ended, in the fullness of time, by producing George Steinbrenner."² His philosophies never came up with a satisfactory answer for why really terrible, evil things happen in the world, and whether a wicked-minded person should also accept Emerson's exhortations to "trust thyself."³

But as his friend and contemporary Walt Whitman, said, "the best part of Emersonianism is, it breeds the giant that destroys itself."⁴ You can dislike Emerson, turn against him, toss his works aside and set out on your own path. Just the way he told you to.

enotes:

Self-Wisdom
Quite simply, Transcendentalism is based on the belief that human beings have self-wisdom and may gain this knowledge or wisdom by tuning in to the ebb and flow of nature. Transcendentalism revolves around the self, specifically the betterment of the self. Where Emerson and his followers differed from earlier philosophical and religious beliefs was in the idea that human beings had innate knowledge and could connect with God directly rather than through an institution such as organized religion. Transcendentalism celebrated the self, an important step in the construction of American identity, better understood as the notion of American individualism—one of the cornerstones of American democracy.
Different writers conceived of the search for self-knowledge in different ways. Whitman’s response was a grand celebration of the self in all its complexity and beauty and contradictions. He begins the poem “Song of Myself” with the bold line, “I celebrate myself.” He offers up to his readers, “I loafe and invite my Soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease . . . observing a spear of summer grass.” Leaves of Grass is filled with such celebration.
Thoreau took a slightly different path toward self-knowledge. Walden is a study of solitude. He says, “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. . . . I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” For him, self-discovery comes as the result of intense reflection. Self-knowledge has political implications as well. Once the individual has established a moral code, it becomes his or her duty to peacefully protest and engage in civil disobedience against the government should governmental policies violate that code. Thoreau’s opposition to slavery led to his refusal to pay a poll tax supporting the Mexican War, an act that landed him in jail for a night. For Thoreau, self-discovery was not simply an intangible concept, it was a way of living.
Nature and Its Meaning
Nature is the focal point for much transcendentalist thought and writing. As a theme, it is so central to the movement that Emerson’s cornerstone essay is entitled Nature and serves as an investigation into nature and its relationship to the soul. For transcendentalists, nature and the soul were inextricably linked. In the rhythms and seasons of the natural world, transcendentalists found comfort and divinity. In the increasingly industrialized and fragmented world in which they lived, the search for meaning in nature was of great importance. Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Hawthorne, Fuller, Melville, and others saw possibility, liberation, and beauty in nature.
Emerson writes in Nature, “Let us interrogate the great apparition, that shines so peacefully around us. Let us inquire, to what end is nature?” For Emerson, nature is a direct line to God, and its “meaning” is directly linked to God’s “meaning.” His definition of God and meaning is clearly different than that of the conservative Unitarian Church from which he split.
A follower of Emerson, Thoreau took ideas from Emerson’s work and put them into practice. He saw nature as not just an awe-inspiring force but a way of life. Thoreau offers up the following advice in Walden: “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.” For Thoreau, nature is pure because it is free from commercialization and industrialization. It is both a respite and a teacher. The transcendentalists were not reactionary or opposed to the modernization of the world; they were, however, concerned that such modernization could lead to alienation. Nature provided a way to keep humans in touch with their souls and with their spiritual foundations.
Social Reform
Regarding social issues, transcendentalists were considered visionaries in their attitudes toward such issues as social protest, elimination of slavery, women’s rights, creative and participatory education for children, and labor reform. Transcendentalism became a venue for social reform because it revolved around the idea of liberation. Transcendentalist writers may have had as their immediate goal the liberation of the soul, but that goal expanded to social liberation as more and more thinkers joined the transcendentalist school of thought.
Founded as an alternative to conservative, organized religion, Transcendentalism had countercultural tendencies from its inception. From the free flowing, free verse of Whitman to the civil disobedience of Thoreau to Fuller’s radical notion that men and women were social and intellectual equals, the movement was engaged in many controversial social arenas.
As the editor of the transcendentalist publication The Dial, Fuller often published controversial pieces. As the author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, she invited debate and controversy. Her essay is a call to action for women and men to change society. She laments:

The lot of Woman is sad. She is constituted to expect and need happiness that cannot exist on earth. She must stifle such aspirations within her secret heart, and fit herself, as well as she can, for a life of resignations and consolations.

Clearly this is not an acceptable life to Fuller, just as slavery is unacceptable to Thoreau. In “Resistance to Civil Government,” Thoreau states, “Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” Thoreau’s answer was to transgress, and go to jail if necessary, for as he says, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” Along with slavery and gender issues, class issues also came to the forefront in the nineteenth century, revealing a new kind of slavery—wage slavery. Transcendentalists experimented with socialist communes, such as George Ripley’s Brook Farm and Alcott’s Fruitlands. These experiments were short lived. The legacy of civil disobedience served America and the world well, as it went on to inspire Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead peaceful social protests. In addition, Fuller is often read as a precursor to modern feminism and is seen as a woman ahead of her time.

Last minute thoughts

Essays:
For Question 3. use all you know about current events and history.
Remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Freud, Jung and Kohlberg.

Books we've read:
The things They Carried  Tim O'Brien
The Bluest Eye   Toni Morrison
As I Lay Dying   William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby   F. Scott Fitzgerald
Their Eyes Were Watching God   Zora Neale Hurston
Ragtime   E. L. Doctorow
Ethan Frome   Edith Wharton
Herland   Charlotte Perkins Gilman
My Antonia   Willa Cather
The Awakening   Kate Chopin

any and all Shakespeare
other good books and plays and films you've read or seen

Life Observations

Whitman, Emerson Self-Reliance

AGENDA:

Finish reading and discussing Whitman

a. “Song of Myself,” among other things, is a meditation on “the individual’s relationship with the universe.” What do you think is your own relationship with the universe? Have you thought about this before? What kinds of questions do you think Whitman will seek to answer?

b. Whitman has been called the “father of free verse,” but what is free verse? What are the distinctions of free verse, compared to some other formal styles of poetry? What examples of free verse poetry can you think of?

c. The preview mentions that Whitman’s time was marked by “a growing self- awareness, the search for identity [and] the evolution of morality.” What was the historical and social context of this poem? What was happening in America in 1860? In what social issues and upheavals can you see evidence of this shift in thought?

i. Whitman’s poem begins with a statement of purpose: “I will celebrate myself, and sing myself.” Why does Whitman want to celebrate himself? Which aspects of his “self” do you think he wants to celebrate?

ii. Why might the “celebration of self” have been a bold subject for a poem in

the 1850s? How was Whitman attempting to subvert the status quo? Why was this concept somewhat controversial in its day?

iii. Though it might not seem so dramatic by today’s standards, what “rules” of rhyme and verse is Whitman breaking in “Song of Myself? How does this poem compare to poems you may have read from earlier in the 19th century?

iv. Why does Whitman speak directly to the reader in the first stanza? How does Whitman see his relationship with readers of this poem? What is the relationship between the “self,” as he puts it, and everyone else?

v. How are Whitman’s ideas, descriptions and language poetic? If there are no rhymes, conventions, formal rules, etc., what makes this a poem? Do you like this style of poetry? Why/why not?

vi. What is Whitman’s overall worldview, as judging from this excerpt? Speculate on Whitman’s beliefs about life and the meaning of existence, as well as our role in the universe as individuals.

HMWK: Read and annotate Emerson's Self-Reliance for discussion tomorrow

Whitman

AGENDA:

Continue to read aloud and present TPCASTT analysis of Whitman's poetry.

Turn in your TPCASTT handout after you present.

Developing an Argument

The English Language Exam: Developing an Argument (College Board)
		by Ron Sudol Associate Provost, Professor of Rhetoric, and Director of the Meadow Brook Writing Project Oakland University Rochester, Michigan
		Returning to Daytona Last spring, I went to Daytona Beach for my seventeenth consecutive year as a Reader of the AP English Language and Composition Exam. I keep going back because the Reading provides a rare opportunity to engage with college and high school colleagues in a rigorous professional task. We create and sustain a consensus on writing quality and apply it to over 400,000 student essays fairly, consistently, and quickly. This year, I was assigned to read Question Three, which called for students to write an argument. The directive says: "Carefully read the following passage by Susan Sontag. Then write an essay in which you support, refute, or qualify Sontag's claim that photography limits our understanding of the world. Use appropriate evidence to develop your argument." There followed a provocative and somewhat cryptic three-paragraph excerpt from On Photography. Key to Success Perhaps the single most important key to success on an AP Exam is the student's ability to see that the prompt identifies a task to be performed. Students who were successful on Question Three recognized key words in the prompt and were able to determine the task they were being asked to do. Claim and Argument This question was not merely an invitation to write discursively on the subject of photography. The word "claim" in the prompt should have alerted students to the need for writing in argumentative form. This point was reinforced by the explicit mention of "argument" in the last sentence. The question requires that students understand what an argument is and know how to construct one. Support, Refute, or Qualify The words "support, refute, or qualify" are technical terms that were not decoded in the question. Students need to know and need to have practiced these forms of argument during the term. (Some students misunderstood "qualify"; for example, "Sontag is not qualified to talk about photography.") In addition, these three words should signal to students that taking a position, even if a qualified one, is essential. Evidence and Develop The word "evidence" is also important. Students need to know not only what constitutes evidence, but the difference between evidence and example. Even "develop" conveyed important signals -- their argument needed to move forward; they couldn't just make one little point and assume they were developing it by adding six redundant illustrations. Common Problems Problems that prevented students from earning a high score on Question Three included: Not taking a clear position or wavering between positions Substituting a thesis-oriented expository essay for an argumentative essay Being reluctant to engage in verbal combat because "everyone's entitled to his or her own opinion," so there's nothing to argue about Slipping out of focus by discussing imagery in general Trying to argue about photography by using evidence drawn from a literary reading list (for example, Othello, The Scarlet Letter) and sliding off topic into the theme of appearance and reality Lacking clear connections between claims and the data, and the warrants needed to support them Trying to analyze Sontag's rhetorical strategies or her style instead of arguing a point Some Suggestions for Teaching When students did less well, the reasons often point toward the need for more direct instruction and practice in argumentative writing. I recommend that teachers place an emphasis on: Teaching students to read the prompt as part of their analysis of the rhetorical situation Teaching students to analyze and compose for a wide variety of writing situations, not merely literary analysis Using a variety of nonfiction prose for teaching composition and rhetoric