Ralph Waldo Emerson from Nature

1
Ralph Waldo Emersonfrom Nature

• ACOS 1a 2a 3c 8
• AHSGE R.II.1 R.III.3 R.IV.2

2
Background

• Born in Boston in 1803
• Family was cultured but poor
• Father died of tuberculosis when he was eight
• Mary Moody Emerson, aunt, became father figure
• Entered Harvard at fourteen to become a Unitarian
  minister
• Married Mary Tucker in 1829. She died 17 months
  later
• Resigned from ministry in 1832 to tour Europe
• Remarried and settled in Concord, Mass. In 1833
• Toured US as a lecturer
• Expressed the advantage of a young land
• Exhilarated by natures beauty and grandeur
• Appealed to intellectuals and the general public
• Son died of scarlet fever in 1842 (emotionally
  damaged)
• Suffered from memory loss as he aged
• Greatly influenced Walt Whitman

3
Literary Focus

• Imagery
• the use of language to evoke a picture of
  concrete sensation of a person, thing, place or
  experience
• imagery uses words that appeals to the senses

4
Vocabulary

• Admonishing
• Integrate
• Perennial
• Blith
• Occult
• Sublime
• Envoys
• Manifold

• Indubitably
• Maugre
• Cordial
• Slough
• Decorum
• Connate
• Tricked
• Chamber

5
From Nature

• To what senses does Emerson appeal in the first
  paragraph? How does he feel when he looks at the
  stars?
• According to Emerson, why do people take stars
  for granted?
• What can the poets eye do when he/she looks at
  nature?
• How does Emerson define the lover of nature?
• What does Emerson think and feel when he stands
  in the woods?
• What is the greatest delight the fields and woods
  give us?
• What does Emerson say about how our own moods can
  affect the way we look at nature?

6
Imagery

• What are the images in the following lines
• Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at
  twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in
  my thoughts any occurrence of special good
  fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.
• What affect does this description have on the
  reader?
• What image is present in paragraph 4? What affect
  does it have?