Saturday, February 25, 2012

Vaticination: the act of prophesying

I am so in awe of Emerson that trying to write about him is a little daunting. Initially I found his frequent contradictions and exuberant comma usage frustrating (actually I still find the commas frustrating), but when I stopped trying to read him like an academic and finally tried to feel what he was saying, I realized the trouble was that I was, in fact, "disunited with [my]self" (I am trying to be clever, please leave me alone). I realized this particularly in "Prospects": "Every surmise and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain respect, and we learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences, which contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no one valuable suggestion. A wise writer will feel that the ends of study and composition are best answered by announcing undiscovered regions of thought, and so communication, through hope, new activity to the torpid spirit" (on a side note, Oh how my torpid spirit awakened upon discovering the word 'vaticination'). So effective was the performativity of Emerson's writing that I wondered if he and Heidegger were BFFs, but after some research I learned that Heidegger was born after Emerson died, and thus the world's greatest friendship could never come to pass. Really, though, I found that more than being able to take any reductive or conclusive statement about nature away from "Nature," I was left with, more than anything, an inclination to go outside and look around. And I think that's what Emerson was trying to do-- at least I hope, because otherwise I just spent a lot of time misinterpreting him-- and while I struggled to accept that at first, this essay really resists an analytical reading; by the time I read "the leafless trees become spires of flame in the sunset," I decided to stop struggling.

I have a hundred more things to say about Emerson, but I think I'll save them for class.

7 comments:

  1. Noelle, your DWP makes me feel bad about mine.
    I definitely agree with "I was left with, more than anything, an inclination to go outside and look around," though. We differ on our overall opinion of things, but I'm starting to think that I just like people saying things out right and discussing them rather then spending a lot of time figuring out how to say them fancy and then me spending a lot of time figuring out how to decode it. Less ambiguity, but it's hard to have a discussion in a book, unless you do it Plato style.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alexa, don't say that! Your DWP is beautiful. Where do our opinions differ?

      Delete
  2. Noelle, I hope that you are right in your thinking that Emerson just wants to get his readers to want to go observe nature, because I found myself thinking the same thing. I don't remember now which part, but at some point in Emerson's writing I found myself thinking about sunsets, and about the joy I tend to get by just looking at a sunset and taking in the beauty of it. Maybe there is some deep, philosophical meaning behind his words (in fact, I'm sure there is somewhere), but he just makes me want to go stare at sunsets for hours, or perhaps watch snow fall, as Alexa wrote about in her DWP.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, Emerson definitely brings up many important philosophical questions-- this certainly isn't purely a piece of poetry. But it was a relatively new experience for me to find such a discussion mixed with beautiful prose. I don't think making an argument is his primary motivation in "Nature."

      Delete
  3. I absolutely felt the need to go outside after reading Emerson. Not only that, but to truly be present while doing so. You can go outside and look and hear things around you, but going outside and truly observing and listening brings about a totally different experience, which, I believe, is one of Emerson's overlying messages in his text.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right! I think so, too. His relationship with nature is more than sensual-- it's spiritual. It is what aligns him with God. It's hard to ignore, however, how dependent he is on his sight. He even says nature can repair any calamity that may befall him in life, "leaving [him his] eyes." I know his "transparent eyeball" is not literal, but I wonder to what degree one needs the sensual aspects of nature to experience the spiritual.

      Delete
  4. "But the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility. He will perceive that there are far more excellent qualities in the student than preciseness and infallibility; that a guess is often more fruitful than an indisputable affirmation, and that a dream may let us deeper into the secret of nature than a hundred concerted experiments."

    ReplyDelete