Nature, Perception, and the Self

Writing Prompt: Nature, Perception, and the Self

Context: In the readings for this unit, writers and poets turn to nature not just as beautiful scenery, but as a way of thinking about perception, mindfulness, and our relationships to the world. Emerson, Thoreau, Wordsworth, Dickinson, and Mary Oliver all suggest that how we see nature shapes how we understand ourselves.

Prompt: In a 5-7 page essay, examine how at least two authors from this unit use nature to explore a central idea about human experience (such as perception, solitude, belonging, memory, gratitude, grief, transcendence, mortality, or awakeningit could be any theme you see!)

Consider questions such as:

• How does nature functionas teacher, mirror, or force in our lives?
• What role does attention or “seeing” play in these texts?
• How do the writers explore nature through language, imagery, and form?

You should analyze the texts in conversation with one another as you dig into the central idea they share.

Your essay should have a clear, arguable thesis and engage closely with specific passages, providing numerous direct quotes in each body paragraph.

Optional extension: You may conclude by briefly reflecting on how these ideas of nature resonateor fail to resonatein a contemporary context or in your own experience.

resources below-

The authors of my choice are Emerson and Mary Oliver

https://www.poetry.com/poem/173568/the-summer-day

https://www.poetry.com/poem/123017/wild-geese

https://www.best-poems.net/mary_oliver/mindful.html

I Become a Transparent Eyeball

from “Nature

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Collected Essays, Penguin USA, New York NY, 1982

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.

I am glad to the brink of fear.

In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough,

and at what period soever1 of life is always a child.

In the woods is perpetual youth.

Within these plantations of God, a decorum2 and sanctity reign,

a perennial festival is dressed,

and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.

In the wood, we return to reason and faith.

There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, –

no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair.

Standing on the bare ground,-

my head bathed by the blithe3 air and uplifted into infinite space,-

all mean egotism vanishes.

I become a transparent eyeball;

I am nothing;

I see all;

the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;

I am part or parcel of God.

The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental:

to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant,

is then a trifle and a disturbance.

I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.

In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate4 than in streets or villages.

In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,

man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.