Carnivalin'

Since I'm a few days late posting this post and therefore feel as though my classmates have more than adequately covered the classes general feelings as far as The Scarlet Letter is concerned, I thought I'd look back a little further into the past month and tackle rather our readings of Emerson and Thoreau, in order not to be ridiculously redundant.

In general we as a class seemed to be more or less uncomfortable with both the content and presentation of Emerson's American Scholar and Nature, both relatively philosophical in nature. Despite a general dislike and frustration, many of my classmates managed to find bits and pieces of good sense. Emerson's deep appreciation of nature and his concept of its role in our understanding of ourselves. Many also struggled with Emerson's concept of the spiritual -- Kiera mentions in particular the tones of Eastern religions that pervade his writings, which are particularly interesting in relation to his prior role as a protestant minister.

We seemed to appreciate Thoreau's presentation of Emerson's philosophy a great deal more, as a group, in particular his initiative in immersing himself in nature. His elegant language was also appealing to the group in general. A few of our classmates, however, found him to fall a little short of his ultimate goal of separating himself from the necessities of society and secluding himself in nature, Walden being, instead of an exposition of an idealistic existence becomes more of an artistic representation of a less-than-idealistic reality.

Overall more people seemed to feel comfortable tackling the concepts in Thoreau as opposed to those in Emerson, due to the relative simplicity of Walden in comparison with Emerson's more philosophical ramblings. Thoreau is approachable and therefore more practical, despite his downfalls.