Alfredo Marquez

Engl 2329
4/20/09

American Literature: Outside Writing Assignment

There have been many great and influential writers in America’s history that have added

to its large and unique style of literature. Such literary geniuses that contributed greatly to

American literature include Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau.

They laid the literary foundation for future great poets and essayists to follow and build upon.

Through the works such as “Song of Myself”, Self-Reliance”, and Walden, these brilliant minds

helped influence the way in which literature was transformed in America through their literary

methods, themes, ideology, and understanding of transcendentalism.

Walt Whitman was a common countryside man who grew up in Long Island. He came

from a typical family at the time; his father was a carpenter who also invested time in building

houses in Brooklyn. Whitman had five years of schooling while growing up in Brooklyn. He

later began to work in the printing offices as a journalist and he moved his way up holding

different positions later on. Although he was successful with his works, Whitman was never far

from living a poor life.

As time went by, Whitman grew politically concerned over the Mexican War because he

was against slavery and the spread of it that this war would cause. His trip down to New Orleans

made him more sympathetic to the hardships of blacks, which influenced him in his writing of

Leaves of Grass. Whitman believed that the ideal poet is the poet of man first, then of nature and

finally God. This is evident in “Song of Myself” through the themes of idea of self, being able to

identify one’s self with others, and the relationship that is between the poet and nature; he also
wrote that poem narrating it in first-person, using “I” to make a more meaningful connection

between him and the readers.

Walt Whitman was a friend of Emerson, who believed in the idea of transcendentalism

for which his works incorporate. Being acquainted with Emerson, Whitman was able to take

some of the ideas of transcendentalism and use it in his poetry. In “Song of Myself” he uses the

idea of the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth; he uses nature, in particular, grass as a symbol for

this cycle. Whitman is best known for being the first to use free verse in poetry because it is free

of the conventional pattern of using meter and rhyme used in most works at the time. This was

considered revolutionary because it really was ahead of its time, very different in style from

other poems and it was easier to read for the regular, common person.

Another great literary writer was Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was born into a clerical

family. His father was a pastor of a church in Boston. As a child, Emerson lived in poverty with

only his mother to raise him and his brothers. He managed to attend Harvard Divinity School

and later joined the ministry. Beginning to believe and embrace the idea of transcendentalism

and of self-reliance, Emerson eventually decided to leave the ministry.

He truly believed in the character of God and of life as being alive, full of spirit, and

found all over nature, unlike that of Christianity which acts as though God was dead and only

sticks to its traditional practices. Emerson’s ideas were influenced by others such as Fenelon,

George Fox, Luther, and Carlyle. He also became acquaintances with other writers such as

Wordsworth and Coleridge while on his travels in Europe. Emerson’s works and lectures where

unique and they served as a great influence to Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau as they

began their own careers.

 Emerson’s literary method could be considered unique to American writing. His use of

ideas taken from transcendentalism and incorporating them into his essays and poems was

uncommon in literature. Those ideas were most expressed in his works such as “Nature”, “Self-

Reliance”, “The American Scholar”, and “The Divinity School Address”. “Nature” is

considered the Bible of transcendentalism. Emerson refers to the idea of transcendentalism that

signifies nature as part of the eternal and he looks at it as a whole, not just individual parts; he

illustrates this when comparing individual farms to the whole landscape. He tries to get across

the fact that man can reach God through nature, in its beauty. Yet, in order to fully appreciate

nature we must see it as a child would because they accept nature as it is and do not try to

manipulate it.

In “Self-Reliance”, Emerson is greatly trying to express that individualism is what most

people are missing, that it is important for people to think for themselves. This idea of the

individual is a key part of transcendentalism. To be fully human means for people to forge their

own paths in life, yet it is difficult to be ourselves and to believe what is in our hearts, which is

what Emerson thinks as true genius. He also mentions our intuition as being that which is

important in making ourselves self-reliant. Emerson also lists four social areas that self-reliance

could be beneficial. These areas are religion, culture, the arts, and society. Self-reliance is

needed in these areas because they cause a hindrance to individuality and creativity, which is the

heart of transcendentalism.

In “The American Scholar”, Emerson continues his idea of individualism but in the form

of man thinking. He is addressing the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard and he gives a lecture

on how a scholar should be; he is also making a statement of independence and of nature’s

importance to the scholar. Emerson mentions that nature, books, and action all act as an
influence to the scholar. Man is a part of nature, not lord of it. It is this that causes the scholar to

be able to understand nature because it is coincides with the mind. Once nature is understood

then the self can also be understood. When the self is understood the scholar is characterized as

a man thinking because he is applying thinking to life, to nature. It is better to be a man thinking

than a thinking man because a thinking man is what Emerson labels as a “bookworm”. The

second influence on the scholar is books and they are helpful in inspiring us but can also be

dangerous to the scholar because if a scholar relies too much on them then their creativity and

individuality is lost and they become a bookworm, merely copying and reading what others have

done. The third influence, action, is necessary to the scholar because action is a resource that the

scholar takes, a virtue of labor. Emerson ends his essay by stating that the duty of a scholar is to

guide men and get facts. The price to pay for this would be to accept poverty and solitude yet

this would lead the scholar to become a true individual expressing their own ideas in their works

and life.

The ideas expressed in these works by Emerson where also carried over in “The Divinity

School Address”. In his address at Harvard, Emerson mentions two themes which have to do

with nature and historical Christianity. The first theme deals with natural religion being the right

religion, which is referring to transcendentalism. The second theme deals with the two defects of

historical Christianity. Those defects are that we believe in Jesus rather than his teachings and

we treat God as if he was dead. What Emerson is getting to in this address is that nature is the

basis for faith, not revelation. These essays of Emerson’s are all built upon the ideas of

transcendentalism that had greatly influenced him throughout his studies and that he himself

greatly implanted on future poets and essayists.

 A third important literary writer that contributed to the uniqueness of American literature

was Henry David Thoreau. He was born in Concord and this was to be a fortunate thing for him

because Concord was full of intellectual minds that aided him in his studies and ideology. Like

other great writers of his time, he attended Harvard in Cambridge. Thoreau had many odd jobs

throughout his life. He worked with his father in pencil making, conducted a private school,

hired himself out, and also worked as a surveyor. Thoreau had made friends with many

influential people at the time, such as Emerson, John Brown, and Walt Whitman.

Thoreau was early on influenced by Emerson and his essays. Although Thoreau was

influenced by Emerson, he had his own method of writing and focused on public and economic

issues in his writing along with the theme of humanity being tied with nature. Most of what

Thoreau wrote on nature was inspired by his personal experiences; this would later reflect in his

works as a deep and dominant depiction of nature. This understanding of nature, set forth by his

commitment to transcendentalism, was expressed in his greatest masterpiece, Walden.

In Walden, Thoreau is pointing out the simplicity in which we should live our lives. He

mentions that there are four necessities in life: clothing, food, shelter, and heat. He states that

rich people only want something that costs a lot but has no utilitarian value. Yet, the rich man is

he who has few belongings because having an excess of possessions requires labor and it also

oppresses us spiritually with worries and constraints. Thoreau mentions that clothing is used to

hide nakedness and it is a novelty; he expresses his hate for fashion. In practicing

transcendentalism, Thoreau became self-reliant at Walden pond by growing a garden of his own

to provide his nourishing food, which consisted of peas, corn, and beans. He also built himself a

small, simple shelter with only an axe that he borrowed and a small amount of money which he

kept note of. As Thoreau mentions, heat is the last necessity of life because it provides warmth;
it is something that he would care for because he lives in the north where it tends to get cold so

the warmth is needed for survival.

One literary method that Thoreau uses in this work is the use of a frame device, which is

something that someone hangs their story on. In Walden, the frame device is the seasonal

changes; these are used as an analogy to the cycle of life, death, and rebirth found in the different

seasons and vegetation. As Walden continues, Thoreau is continuing his use of ideas taken from

transcendentalism and bringing in his philosophy of nature. Thoreau’s stay at Walden was an

intellectual rite of passage. He was able to grow in spirit and to think clearly, especially in the

morning. Thoreau mentions in his writing that “the morning, which is the most memorable

season of the day, is the awakening hour.” This signifies that he appreciated that time of day

because not only was he more awake to life but his mind was clear to think, to be able to

understand the meaning of life, to have a renewed faith and hope is life, and to be reformed.

These unique and enlightening works written by Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau

helped influence the way in which literature was transformed in America through their literary

methods, themes, and ideology. All three writers are connected together by a similar influence,

that of transcendentalism. It was this that first gave these writers their ideas and with their

understanding of it, they were able to apply it to various sections of life and to events

transforming America in the 1800s. Their works were able to bring a new idea and topic to

literature that was for the most part unique to America. Thus, the works done by these writers

gave an influence to many poems, essays, and novels that were to follow and caused the

beginning of a new era of American writing.