Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar"

     While reading "The American Scholar," I began to question how I go about thinking.  Emerson says that a scholar in the right state is "Man Thinking," but "in the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking" (521).  As I thought about this idea of being a "parrot of other men's [or women's] thinking," I began to question if I do that myself.  It's easy to take what people say and apply it without question, especially when their ideas sound attractive.  However, this can be problematic, because then we ourselves are not going through the process of learning but taking the short cut after someone else has already done the hard stuff.  And ideas may sound attractive but actually be destructive, which is why we need to apply our critical thinking to formulate our own opinions.  I don't think it's a bad thing to be influenced by the work of others, as long as we don't become blind followers.
     Along with this idea of being a parrot vs. being "Man Thinking," I thought about how we strive to find our identities as human beings.  When someone asks me about myself, I immediately tell them what I do.  It's unfamiliar and seemingly impossible to describe who we are apart from what we do.  Why is that?  I wonder if it is cultural, or if others struggle with the same thing.  Are we so caught up in our work as Americans that we don't know who we really are?  Or is it not possible to separate what we do from who we are?  These are not simply rhetorical questions, I am open to opinions and suggestions! :)

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature"

     Although I understand Emerson's desire to throw out the old ways and bring in the new--"Let us demand our own works and laws and worship"--I think he is missing out on the conclusions drawn from the work done by people of the past.  I think there is something to be gained through tradition, even if it means we learn that the traditions were not good ones.  Maybe I seem to be contradicting myself here.  What I mean to say is that, from my understanding, Emerson is not interested in the past at all, he simply wants to throw it out and pay it no concern.  He doesn't even care to use the past traditions as a guideline for the future.  And the "new" he wants to bring in is largely concerned with experiencing nature and what we learn by doing that.  I would agree with Emerson that we can learn about ourselves and about God from nature, but the line between nature being created by God and nature actually being God is blurred a little by Emerson, in my opinion.  He gives a lot of authority to nature and talks about our interaction with it almost as you would talk about interacting with God himself!  However, I can agree with Emerson on some of his ideas about nature, even if I think he goes to the extreme with them.  I would agree that nature makes us realize how small we are and how little we can affect it in comparison to how much it affects us.  This is something I think we don't understand as much as Westerners.  Nature doesn't affect us as much because we can work around it--if it rains, we go inside.  If it snows, we plow it away.  It's only in events like a hurricane or a tornado that we realize how little influence we have over nature and how powerful nature is.  I would also agree with Emerson that nature can stimulate thought and that we are forever in awe of it; no matter how many times we see a sunset, we never cease to be amazed by it.  I think the way that Emerson speaks of nature is very romantic and beautiful, even if I think he worships it a little too much!

From Columbus to Equiano

     We began this unit talking about Columbus and his tactics used to persuade and flatter Ferdinand and Isabella, we heard from John Smith, marketing America and urging people from England to move and make a profitable and successful life for themselves, John Winthrop emphasized the importance of Christian charity and encouraged America to be a model to the world, but then we read some of the people who were having a harder and more realistic time living in this new land that the first few spoke of.  We heard from Mary Rowlandson, about the dark side of America which included violence, death, and captivity, and we heard from another oppressed woman--although suffering a different type of oppression.  Anne Bradstreet used her poetry to call into question the presuppositions many had that women innately lacked ability to write well.  We then heard from another poet--one who called forward the feminine side of God in his work "Huswifery" and used his meditations to get his congregation to reflect on God.  After we talked about another important pastoral figure, Jonathan Edwards, and his harsh exhortation to the church to turn from sin, we then moved on to important political figures, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison's writing in "The Federalist."  But to wrap up the unit, we heard from two other slaves, one a narrative of Equiano's life, and the other poetry by Phyllis Wheatley describing how coming to America introduced her to God.
     Throughout this unit, the themes I have found stuck out to me were slavery/captivity, success/wealth, ideas about government/politics, and Christian morals/religion.  As I have tried to understand how these all work together, it has made me think of today's America, and how all of these themes still have lingering affects.  Understanding the past through these literary lenses has helped me to make sense of the future.  However, if we don't learn from the past, everything will remain how it is.  We certainly have a lot to work on in America, but as long as we have these past texts to point out what went wrong in the past, we can use them to point us in the right direction for the future.  I'm gaining an appreciation for early American Literature after asl!

Phillis Wheatly

     One thing that I struggled with while reading Wheatly was how she talked about her conversion to Christianity after she was brought to America.  In "On Being Brought from Africa to America," she says in the first line, "'Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land," suggesting that it was God who brought her to America.  In "To the University of Cambridge," she similarly says, "Twas not long since I left my native shore / The land of errors, and Egyptian gloom: / Father of mercy, 'twas Thy gracious hand / Brought me in safety from those dark abodes."  I struggle with this because she was brought to America as a slave, which means that, in this case, God made her a slave in America so that she could come to know him.  This makes me a little uncomfortable.  I don't doubt that God can work through difficult situations and use them for good, but the thought that putting her in slavery was God's will causes tension for me.  At the same time, I think of Joseph's story of being sold into slavery in Egypt, and how God worked through that situation to make Joseph a leader and the second most powerful man in Egypt.  I also thought it was interesting in "To the University" how Wheatly attributed her conversion to education.  She says, "Still more, ye sons of science ye receive / The blissful news by messengers from Heav'n / How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows."  These lines seem to suggest that Wheatly came to Christianity largely by the education she got in America.  On one hand, it is wonderful that Wheatly came to know Christ while enduring slavery, which could have easily turned her away from what she could think was the God of her oppressors, but on the other hand it's strange to think that it was "God's will" for her to come to know him this way.  When people explain death or tragedy with "it's all a part of God's plan" I struggle with this and question it.  Is it a part of God's plan or is it a result of a sinful world?  If anyone has any thoughts on how they feel about this, I would love to hear them!