Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essay

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In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Nature,” he uses a plethora of metaphoric images and symbolism to draw the reader head first into his ideas and assumptions about life, beauty, and spiritualism. Emerson rests on the use of physical images in this essay to describe the need for spiritualism and the importance of communing with nature, rather than relying on the hope of a one true God or a Holy Trinity. Emerson, at least in this essay, seems to believe that imagery and spiritualism are even more important than a spoken language. In the essay “Nature,” one of the largest metaphors Emerson uses is the image of water. The fluidity and the clarity of water gives several different meanings and metaphors within his writing. Emerson asks the question, …show more content…
As Emerson states, “Nature is thoroughly mediate. It is made to serve. It receives the dominion of man as meekly as the ass on which the Savior rode. It offers all its kingdoms to man as the raw material which he may mould into what is …show more content…
For example, to today’s humans, language is the first choice to communicate with peers. However, as Emerson states, “Language is a third use which Nature subserves to man.” As he also states, every natural part of life has some spiritual significance behind it. Today, many of Emerson’s ideas do not hold water, as the case may be, but his metaphors for the spiritual world as well as the natural one, still resonate in much of today’s

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