Transcendentalism, Romanticism, and Into The Wild Unit

Nature: What role does it play in your life?

In-class: Read and annotate Emerson's Nature and write two inferential questions for discussion tomorrow. Hand in before you leave class. 

Example Inferential Questions:

Interpretive/inferential: When Emerson states that "when good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;--the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new" (29) it seems as though he believes that man is not born with goodness in them. Why do you think he believes this? What does Emerson believe goodness is and why can't man achieve it? How would one know if "good is near [them]" if it is "strange and new" to them? 

Interpretive/inferential: When Emerson writes "truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster" (32), is he suggesting that people who do not live like this cannot be godlike? Why or why not? Does he consider the fact that those who may only trust themselves for motives may be selfish, or fighting for a non-positive cause? If he considers this and still believes it, does he believe that an independent person with negative intentions may still be godlike? 

Interpretive/inferential Question: Emerson claims that "Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration" (36). What do you think Emerson means by "society never advances", yet "it undergoes continual changes"? Is society in a never ending cycle of changes? Explain. 

HW: Read and annotate Chapters 2 & 3: The Stampede Trail and Carthage (10-23)

On page 9, (beginning of chapter 2) we have a quote from Jack London's White Fang.  How does London's point of view and depiction of the northern "Wild" perhaps differ from Emerson's point of view on nature in his essay Nature? Write one well-developed paragraph with at least one embedded quote from each text.