| 1. What exactly does
Emerson mean in Nature when he writes, "Every man's?condition
is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put"
(440)? How does this comment relate to his thesis about nature?
2. What distinction
does Emerson make between Nature in the philosophical and common
senses? Does Emerson's insistence that this distinction is
unimportant still make sense in today's? world? Why or why not?
3. What does Emerson
mean when he says he becomes "a transparent eye-ball" (442)?
4. How does Emerson's
essay combine philosophical and poetic insight?
5. If Nature is a manifesto
for a new, "original relationship" with nature, what elements of the
work function as a manifesto?
6. Nature is a manifesto for a new, "original relationship" with
nature, what is that new relationship, what are its terms?
7. How does this new
relationship compare with Crevecoeur's "new man"?
8. What does Emerson say is
the relationship between language and natural facts? What does this
relationship reveal about the relationship between human beings and
spirit?
9. Compare "The Rhodora" with Freneau's "To a Wild Honeysuckle" and
Bryant's "To a Yellow Violet," "To a Fringed Gentian," and "To a
Waterfowl."
10. What is the "theme" or "message" of "The Sphinx" and of "Each
and All"? How and where are these ideas expressed in Nature?
11. What similarities do you find between Emerson's ideas and those
of Chinese philosophy and religion?
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