Lit. Antonio Hitchcock
Transcendentalism October 24,’06

After reading "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I feel that he is connecting man with nature in a way not like we see it today but as we would a newcomer from another plant. In his essay he states "The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood." What this means to me is, the lover of nature is connected to his surrounds physically, and spiritually. A lover of nature pays attention to everything his or her senses applies to every day. From everything we take notice to like the sun, the stars, the moon; form everything we don’t, like bugs that live under the ground we stand on, to small animals that live in the water we drink, and to the very way all animals live and communicate.

Transcendentalism believed that if a person was truly in touch with their surroundings, they could transcend these physical and man-made things to connect with God. This supports my idea that Ralph Waldo was indeed transcendentalism and his essay "Nature" proves me theory. In "Nature" Ralph states "Most persons do not see the sun. At least they do not have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child." And one I favor "The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence."

In "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson I notice how the essay began it gave a good example of Transcendentalism. "There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till." What this says to me is that a baby doesn’t stay a baby forever for its mother nourishing; the baby grows up and must take care of itself to live on. What else stuck out to me was " God will not have his work made manifest by cowards" which means the same thing in a way, that not even God himself would help those who won’t put an effort towards helping themselves.

More good examples of Transcendentalism are found in Ralph Waldo essay "Self-Reliance". Since Transcendentalists believed that God spoke through people's minds and their hard work. People would want something to do with their lives or some purpose. As in the essay any transcendentalists would say "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried." Which means what exactly what it says, you don’t know what you can do nor the people around you till you do something.

As I read " Resistance to Civil Government" by Henry David Thoreau I notice that Henry David was the guy who wanted everything to come easy. His essay show that he too share some thinking of Transcendentalism ways. "I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through, before they could get to be free as I was." Meaning that he was freer than the people outside of jail because his actions were to change what he though was good for the people. He feels that he was not separated with the townsmen or outside.

Despite what Henry believes he too share ways of a Transcendentalist. Since God spoke through individuals, Transcendentalists did not believe that institutions like the government or organized religion were effective. Thoreau was arrested because he refused, on principle, to pay a tax to the state. He refused primarily because he was opposed to the government’s support of slavery. "I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name-if ten honest men only –aye, if one honest man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefore, it would be the abolition of slavery in America."

If I was in the first scenario or scenario one being as David, I would just move out with Susan near her school and fine me a job from there. A Transcendentalist would say we can spilt up from each other and unite when Susan finish school. Since Transcendentalists believed that God spoke through people's minds and their hard work, David would have stayed with his father grocery store in home town while Susan move out to go to school. They wouldn't let each other get in their way of work since this was their way of communicating with God.

Lit. Antonio Hitchcock
American Romanticism 9/3/’06
The sketch book RIP Van Winkle is a tail about a man who sleeps for twenty years. I feel that every story teaches a lesson to be learned and the lesson in this one is to take every minute of your life with care. In this story Van Winkle takes his time with everyone and everything else but his self. He finds his self lost in mountains with strangers drinking till he fell asleep. When he wore up he was twenty years older and the only people that know him was his daughter and an old lady. That his whole life was almost over in a night and now he has to live in a world he hardy even knew anymore.

The sketch book RIP Van Winkle is a story that lives up to its name. Rest in peace Van Winkle for your life is over and you never took any time out for your self. I like this story because people sometimes forget their self and only been living doing things they take for granted. Like Van Winkle who lived tell stories and helping people out as if he was born to do so. He had a wife and child of his own to be taking care of let alone his neighbor.

What I found romantic in this story is that Van Winkle still had someone he knew and loved like his daughter, his neighbor and dog which didn’t know him anymore. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. "My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten me!" Rip's daughter took him home to live with herAs to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to any thing else but his business. "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle--it is himself! Welcome home again, an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, old neighbor--Why, where have you been these twenty long years?"

In Thanatopsis I believe this poem is saying there is peace within death and no sadness nor pain or remorse. In this poem a man is on his death bed waiting for this gentle reaper to take him in that won't be his last ride, but the begining of a new. Thy image. Earth, that hourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolv'd to earth again; What I found romantic about this poem is how the author makes something like death to be a beautifull transfromation form life to death and from death to life all over again in the cycle of life. That in death there should be no sadness but rejoices for all things have a beginning and end and that each transformation should be love and respected.

In The Ropewalk the author finds peace at work using his imagnation. The images that stick out to me is the characher imagation; human spiders spining their spin, two young women in a swing, then an woman high up the air on a cord in a mountebanks, a woman drawing water form a well, a man in a tower ringing a bell, a prison yard with hard faces at a gallows-tree, a school boy with his kite, Steeds pursued through a lane and field, duck hunters with their snares concealed, a person fishing by a river, and finialy a ship draging anchor through faithless sand. What I can find romantic about this poem is how the author uses his imagation to up his sprit from a boring day of work.

Like your picture, here I too see romanticism in my picture. It’s something that doesn’t deal with anything but the art of nature. Here in my picture humans are at one nature living on the mountain side. I pick this picture because you can’t get any better than this when it come to romanticism. Just it’s scenery is what I would call a good definition of romanticism not romantic, but in a way it can seem romantic if you where some of the people living there.