Emily Dickinson: Transcendentalist Experience Through Imagination :: essays research papers

Emily Dickinson Transcendentalist Experience Through ImaginationThe early nineteenth century ideas of transcendentalism, which were introducedby Ralph Emerson and David Thoreau, where earthly concern as an individual becomesspiritu ally consumed with personality and himself through experience are contrastedby Emily Dickinson, who chose to branch off this caterpillar tread by viewing that atranscendentalist experience could be achieved through vagary alone. Thesethree monumental framers set the boundaries for this new realm of thought.Although these writers ideas were not similar, they all followed the simple ideathat the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul . The staminate perspectiveseen through the works of Thoreau and Emerson, where spirit refers to essencesunchanged by man the air, the river, the leaf , is revised and satirized byDickinsons statement that Of all the Souls that stand create-, I have elected-One . Dickinsons works were meant to taunt society by show ing how a woman, humorousally trapped in her natural surroundings of the home, could become asmuch power, if not more than any male writer. This ironic revisions of ideas isdirected at all male transcendentalists and figures in society.Both Ralph Emerson and David Thoreau utilize societies stereotype of thetrue male environment, nature, to draw their power and write from theirexperiences. Experience was the most important factor to these writers. Theability to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account in my nextexcursion was the basis of all their writings. To get the whole and echtmeanness of it, and publish its meanness to the whole world was their goal after part all their writings. They did not use their power of writing in order of magnitude togain a transcendentalist experience, but rather to record them. Both Emersonand Thoreau chose to jobber their true natural surroundings, and experiencetime alone in the woodwind. By being in solitude, it brought fort h a succinctness that all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mindis exonerated to their influence .Mans views of nature being rightfully his, to do with what he wants, is gratingly contrasted by Emerson, who feels that Nature sais,-He is my creature .Emerson felt that man, corrupted by society, stick out over power the fate of overlooking his true meaning. Escaping from the swan of society into the woods, isperpetual youth. By living in the woods, he found that fusing nature with soul,one can accomplish anything.Emerson felt that nature was an extension of five of his senses, wherehe could feel the tree moving in the wind as if it was his own body.