Nature As Reflected In American Literature Essay

, Research Paper

In his Poeticss, Plato contemplates the nature of aesthetics and being. He postulates that for every bing object and thought there is an absolute & # 8220 ; ideal & # 8221 ; which transcends human experience. He farther concludes that art, including literature, is an aesthetic representation of existent objects and thoughts that is used to better understand their & # 8220 ; ideals. & # 8221 ; In theory, as an object becomes closer ideal it besides becomes a better topic for the creative person. American creative persons in peculiar have been given an priceless chance to research this kingdom of the Platonic ideal. Because the American continent and its wilderness was chiefly unsullied by the depredations of civilisation, the natural universe found at that place by early colonists was much closer to being & # 8220 ; ideal & # 8221 ; than anyplace else on Earth. For this ground, nature has become one of the most of import topics of American art, particularly Literature. Specific illustrations from American literature including the plants Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Walden, and & # 8220 ; To a Waterfowl & # 8221 ; can demo how American writers explore the ideals of human being through aesthetic representations of nature.

William Cullen Bryant, who has been called & # 8220 ; the male parent of American poesy, & # 8221 ; is one of the earliest creative persons to capture the kernel of nature in America and use it to the human experience. In his verse form & # 8220 ; To A Waterfowl & # 8221 ; he uses the illustration of a water bird to make a better apprehension of human being. In the verse form, the water bird is portrayed as a near-perfect creative activity, and it is treated with a sense of fear. The first stanza demonstrates this:

Whither, thick falling dew,

While glow the celestial spheres with the last stairss of twenty-four hours,

Far, though their rose-colored deepnesss, dost 1000s prosecute

Thy lone manner?

Though it is non funny that a bird would be winging in the forenoon, Cullen presents the poultry in flight as being about supernatural. The bird emerges from the & # 8220 ; heavens & # 8221 ; about like an angel and the character addresses it in an highly respectful tone. It can be presumed that the character would hold that nature, embodied in the poultry, is near to what Plato would name an & # 8220 ; ideal. & # 8221 ; Bryant, through his aesthetic presentation of the bird, so deepens his apprehension of human experience. The character and, as an extension, Bryant finally conclude, through contemplation over the flight of the water bird, that the higher & # 8220 ; Power & # 8221 ; that guides the poultry besides guides them.

This usage of nature to better understand certain & # 8220 ; ideals & # 8221 ; is non limited to positive illustrations or the representation of good forces like the Power in & # 8220 ; Waterfowl. & # 8221 ; Herman Melville illustrates the ambiguity of nature in his fresh Moby Dick by stand foring certain evil elements of human being with comparable elements in nature. His usage of the shark is model of this. He portrays the shark as the prototype of what a man-eater is. Through the creative activity of a well-conceived syllogism, he uses this portraiture of the shark to develop the character of Ahab.

The first thing Melville does to carry through this is puting the shark on a higher plane of being than adult male by stating that they are like & # 8220 ; angels good governed. & # 8221 ; This is really effectual because, finally, sharks are nearer to being & # 8220 ; ideal & # 8221 ; man-eaters than any adult male could be. They kill humors

H no compunction, eat their ain sort dead or alive, and even assail their ain organic structures when wounded. This representation of a cannibal deepens the reader? s apprehension of what an “ideal” man-eater is and subsequently used by Melville when Ahab is compared to a shark. This syllogism states that if a shark is the prototype of a man-eater and Ahab is like a shark, so Ahab must besides be like the prototype of a man-eater. Such usage of specific parts of nature like the shark and the water bird are of import elements in American literature, but the usage of nature as an entity in itself is besides widely employed.

Mark Twain and Henry David Thoreau both use nature as an entity to explicate certain truths of human being. Both stress the indispensable function that nature dramas in society and the importance of adult male? s relationship to nature. The manner in which each trade with this importance, nevertheless, differ greatly. Twain focuses on nature? s function as a safety and a beginning of peace when compared to civilisation. Thoreau, a transcendentalist, focuses on nature as a & # 8220 ; contemplation of an interior religious reality. & # 8221 ;

In Huckleberry Finn, Twain presents nature as a safety for Huck and Jim. When they are entirely with nature, they have clip to civilization their relationship, relax, and enjoy life. Huck? s feelings about nature can be best summed up when he and Jim are basking a rainstorm in the island cave and he says, & # 8220 ; Jim, this is nice. I wouldn? T want to be nowhere else but here. & # 8221 ; This idyllic province, nevertheless, is disrupted every bit shortly as the two brush civilisation. They so encounter many adversities and must work harder to last than when they are with nature. This is a good illustration of contrast used to stand for an ideal. Couple shows the repose of nature and its goodness in direct comparing with the feverish and far from ideal nature of civilisation.

Thoreau takes a more serious attack than Twain. He believes nature to be the highest physical world on Earth, exceeding human experience and merely by understanding nature can a individual understand himself. He would most likely agree that aesthetic representations of nature are the key to intensifying human apprehension of being. His fresh Walden is based on such aesthetic representations. He says that & # 8220 ; I went into the forests because I wished to populate intentionally, to look merely the indispensable facts of life, and see if I could non larn what it had to learn, and non, when I came to decease, detect that I had non lived. & # 8221 ; This shows the about stoic devotedness that he has to happening truth in nature. He intends to larn from it and do himself vulnerable to it.

Clearly Thoreau believes that nature is near to a Platonic ideal, the truth. He says that nature holds the & # 8220 ; indispensable facts of life & # 8221 ; and through his authorship, he becomes closer to nature itself, and hence closer to the truth. The same is true in some manner besides for Twain, Melville, and Bryant. This is the key to American Literature. If art is genuinely a representation of some intangible ideal made in the hopes of better apprehension being, so nature has been the greatest vehicle for art in America. Since the subsiding of this continent, the writers of America have been greatly affected by a wild, beautiful, and about ideal nature. American Literature, hence, has taken nature in as it? s most of import and loved topic.