The Symbolism Of Language In John Muir's My First Summer

In the book of Proverbs it is written, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” (Proverbs 18:21). This verse contains two important and beautiful images: the tongue and the fruit. The former, endowed with the command of mortality, is symbolic of language; the latter, growing out of the first, representative of speech and the written word. Together these images suggest not only that language has an extreme influence upon the human experience, but also that language is something of nature: it is a tongue, it is a piece of fruit. The verse proclaims an undeniable strength of language while simultaneously evoking images of the natural. John Muir’s My First Summer in the Sierra reverses this process: while exploring …show more content…
A legislator is someone who makes laws. Law is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “The body of rules, whether proceeding from formal enactment or from custom, which a particular state or community recognizes as binding on its members or subjects” (“law, n.1”). What entity creates more rules that the global community must follow than nature itself? On a large scale, humanity has no control over the actions of nature. Human law cannot stop natural disasters. Human law cannot force nature to create more fossil fuels at a renewable speed. Human law cannot stop the sun from shining or gravity from pulling. Shelley declares “Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge; it is that which comprehends all science, and that to which all science must be referred” (503). Science is rooted in natural observation; and, therefore, nature contains all that science has and ever could discover. Human action is reactionary to natural law; despite its greatest desires, humanity has not truly conquered nature. Nature is the legislator of humanity’s actions – acknowledged or