Compare and Contrast the Concept

¶ … nature in American literature, from earliest writings to the Civil War period. It is my purpose to outline the connection between spirituality, freedom and nature and explain how American writers have chosen to reflect and interpret these themes in relation to their historical realities.

At the beginning of the colonization process there were two congruent depictions of nature. Initially, the tribes comprising The Iroquois League lived in close contact with nature and believed in the importance of maintaining a harmonious relationship with it. In this respect, the Iroquois Constitution imposes a devout display of gratitude to all by-human elements of the world before the opening of any council. On the other hand, the early explorers and founders of the United States perceived an immense natural potential in the country. In this sense, Thomas Hariot describes the New World as a land of wealth, his words and images aimed both at inspiring potential English investors and settlers and endowing them with practical information required for survival.

Notwithstanding nature's practical functions, Nathaniel Hawthorne captures in his story Young Goodman Brown the American Puritan sentiment of fear in the face of wild, untamed nature, and possibly suggests that from a point-of-view nature corrupts morals, ends innocence and leads away from God (Barna, 2001).

Jonathan Edwards takes on a profoundly Christian interpretation of nature, portraying it as a splendid example of God's majesty and a repetition of His image. However, the author claims that God and Nature remain two distinct notions, with God as the superior entity who cannot be identified with His creations. The place destined for nature in the major creational design is that of an illustrative mediator, a conductor which serves the purpose of communicating divine knowledge to human beings. Also, Edwards' nature is the equivalent of a stage designated for the continuous unfolding of divine mysteries, comprised of various cycles that join with the Holy Bible in celebrating and commemorating Jesus Christ's resurrection.

An interesting direction can be traced from Thomas Paine to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Apparently, these two authors employ very distinct means of reaching God, Reason and Nature. Nevertheless, in their writings, these prerogatives bear identical meaning as tools for comprehending inexplicable phenomena. In this light, Emerson's and Paine's distrust of miracles justifies a shared necessity to personally experience God's natural world in order to validate their faith (Webb, 2006).

It might be relevant to observe that Ralph Waldo Emerson championed the transcendental literary current which also commanded great influence in the works of Thoreau, Melville, Whitman and Hawthorne. The most poignant feature of transcendentalism is reflected in the belief that God is personally accessible outside the religious congregations, present in each individual and most notably in nature. This particular conviction led to the portrayal of an enthusiastic support for self-reliance and forsaking of traditional authority, Emerson's writings being clearly dominated by the image of man striving to attain personal communion with divinity, a rather bold approach compared to Jonathan Edwards' previous piety. By contrast, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow has a less abstract approach to nature, depicting it as a more tangible, visible phenomenon which has the quality of shaping character, thought and feeling patterns.

Defiance of religious control and social order was endemic among the artists of nineteenth century. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman visibly renounced the conventional in favor of seclusion. It could be interpreted that the initial individualism pervaded a sense of alienation from a society that was becoming more and more rigid and suffused with material preoccupations. In addition, Herman Melville rejects the optimism of transcendentalism, for he perceives nature as a combined mixture of cruelty and beauty. Henry David Thoreau, similarly to Walt Whitman and all the other transcendentalists, celebrates "the simple separate person" (Whicher, 1945), and yet his particularity is excess because he embraces nature to the detriment of his fellow human beings.