Ralph Waldo Emerson's Symbolism Of Nature

Nature has many elements to it that have symbolic meaning in diverse ways to every person. One of the many symbols of nature is the sun, which to many people it’s a symbolism of power. When we see it, we notice that without the sun there would be no life on our planet. One young boy from Boston Massachusetts, Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the most well-known writers for the symbolic meanings of nature and with that became an inspirational writer during his time. His ideas and writings helped shape the paths of other writers like Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller. While writing, Emerson was using the theme of spirituality to reimagine the divine as something large and visible, he accomplished this by writing an essay called “Nature”. This idea is known as transcendentalism, which is a philosophical and social movement. Transcendentalism taught that divinity pervades all of nature and humanity. When looking out into the wilderness, a person with the right imagination can see God’s work and beauty in everything. When reading the first few pages Emerson states “I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me” (Emerson 182). What he is trying to say here is that a person who is alone in the wilderness is never truly alone, because we have nature surrounding us. This is one way that Emerson is trying to tell us that as a society we need to live simple lives while living in harmony with nature. He is telling us to go outside instead of living our lives