UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO Centro de Letras e Artes Faculdade de Letras Departamento de Letras Anglo-Germnicas Setor de Lngua Inglesa

a Discipline: Poesia em Lngua Inglesa Professor: Tarso do Amaral Student: Vanderlei Choquecallata (Group: LEI) 7) American scholar Francis E. Skipp argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that Nature was a vast array of symbols, which could lead their individual interpreter toward the eternal truth of God and the cosmos (SKIPP, 1992, p.29). Comment on Skipps argument bearing in mind what was discussed about Emerson and his poetic production in class. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a philosopher and poet. Educated to become a religious leader, he resigned such role due to unfaithfulness on some Christian creed. Also, he was influenced by Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Carlyle; therefore his writings have some characteristics of the mystic idealism and Wordsworthian reverence for nature (Drabble, 2000: 325). Considered the father of Transcendentalism, Emersons saying Nature is the incarnation of thought. The world is the mind precipitated reveals the primacy of nature in such new quasi-religious concept of Transcendentalism brought by Emerson (: 325). In his poem Self Reliance, Emerson makes reference to God plenty of times. In the passages I will be/ Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God./ I find him in the bottom of my heart,/ I hear continually his voice therein. we can see that God or, at least, the representation of some sort of divinity that guides the being is within rather than outside the poetic I. The static definition/conception of Heaven is questioned, as in Oh what is Heaven but the fellowship/ Of minds that each can stand against the world/ By its own meek and incorruptible will?. In this sense, Heaven is not a preconceived place; it is rather a constructed environment, which can be reached by those individuals who follow their inner voice. Those who are able to listen to their own true inner voice of wisdom are the ones who will actually reach a state of salvation from such a mutable and unstable world. Stability and harmony should be found within the self, not outside it. Another feature of Emersons writing is that of Home as an idealized place. In his poem Good-bye, the poetic I says good-bye to the artificial elements of the world. The poetic I says good-bye to whatever that does not belong to his creed, to his perspectives about the world, to whatever that is different from what his inner voice says world should be like: Good-bye, proud world! Im going home:/ Thou art not my friend, and Im not thine.. Home is a place connected to nature, if not nature itself; it is a primitive place, surrounded by natural elements. To the poetic I, all the truth and knowledge that have

been achieved are useless. They do not connect the being with the most natural and primitive aspect of humans, the voice of the consciousness. These truths and knowledge just distances the human beings from themselves, from their essence. O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,/ () I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,/ At the sophist schools and the learned clan;/ For what are they all, in their high conceit,/ When man in the bush with God may meet?. For Emerson, the only way to have access to God is through nature. The real divinity has to be sought for within us. And, for that, escaping from the environments already dominated by the hand of other men was essential because only in nature one can find oneself and listen to the voice at the bottom of the heart.

10) It is possible to establish a connection between Emily Dickinsons poetic production and those of the most emblematic transcendentalist authors, i.e. Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, when we take into consideration the theme of subjectivity. Comment on such assertion bearing in mind what was discussed about Dickinson in class. For Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, the inner voice of the individual was unique, everlasting and unchanging. Although all of their writings showed the characteristic of individuality and simplicity, it is important to emphasize that Whitman was the only one among them that considered the voice of his poetic I to contain the voice of others. In this sense, we can see how the voice of the poetic I, in that sequence of transcendentalist poets, enlarges so much as to contain the voice of others within it. For them, the inner voice was reliable and would lead the self to truth. Once the inner voice was listened to, truth would be achieved and everything would become known to the self. There would be no change in going backwards. What came forward also would not be surprising for the self who found the truth. However, for Dickinson, there was no absolute truth, no absolute identity, no absolute conception of the self. In her poem One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted we can see that the issue of subjectivity is present. To achieve such theme of subjectivity, Dickinson does not use the heart as a symbol to portray that characteristic, she rather uses the brain, The Brain has Corridors surpassing/ Material Place . To surpass the material condition of life, one may walk through such corridors, which, in her poem, do not lead the poetic I to a positive, relieving truth; the corridors rather lead the individual to an unknown self within the individual, a frightening and disturbing self: Ourself behind ourself, concealed / Should startle most / Assassin hid in our Apartment/ Be Horrors least.. Moreover, this discovered self within the self has the potential to lead the individual to suicide The Body borrows a Revolver / He bolts the Door / Oerlooking a superior spectre / Or More . This subjective self is so real that it becomes embodied, that, in a way, it becomes actually real due to its potential of causing real harm to the previous material self.

In That sacred Closer when you sweep , Dickinson introduces the issue of memory, of going backwards on your experiences and actually discovering things that had not been noticed at the time of the experiencing: That sacred Closet when you sweep / Entitled Memory / Select a reverential Broom / () Twill be a Labor of surprise/ Besides Identity/ Of other interlocutors/ A probability.. Memory is a sacred place that, when revolved on, may surprise the self so much that it can silence you. For Dickinson, there is no singular subjective and unique self. The inner voice is rather plural, multiple, and it may not lead one to a light atmosphere. It may rather overwhelm oneself. While for Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman the physical and spiritual connection with nature was the only vehicle to listen to the inner voice of the self, for Dickinson this can occur without getting out of ones mind, of ones memory.

References: Drabble, M. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: OUP. Dickinson, E. E. One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted . In T. do Amaral (2013), Poesia. Apostila 02 The Romantic Period (pp. 88). [Booklet]. Rio de Janeiro: Editor. Dickinson, E. E. That sacred Closer when you sweep . In T. do Amaral (2013), Poesia. Apostila 02 The Romantic Period (pp. 88). [Booklet]. Rio de Janeiro: Editor. Emerson, R. W. Good-bye. In T. do Amaral (2013), Poesia. Apostila 02 The Romantic Period (pp. 68). [Booklet]. Rio de Janeiro: Editor. Emerson, R. W. Self-Reliance. In T. do Amaral (2013), Poesia. Apostila 02 The Romantic Period (pp. 67). [Booklet]. Rio de Janeiro: Editor.