All the names; the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers, the mountains, the trees, the flowers, the scholars and the time on Earth are all ranked under nature by Emerson. (Nature, 1836) and scholars look for answers from nature because of which nature and men are interconnected but in contrast to this Thoreau points out that nature and man are not interlinked and that Men and Nature are two different entities and this is why both Ralph Waldo Emerson in ‘The American Scholar’ and Henry David Thoreau in ‘Walden; or, Life in The Woods’ talks about man and nature. Emerson was born on the 25th of May in 1803 and died after 79 years in April 27th, 1882 (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wikipedia). Emerson led the movement of the Transcendentalist which happened in the mid-19th century and this movement was a protest against the spirituality (Transcendentalism, Wikipedia). Thoreau was well known for his outspoken nature against slavery in the United States and for this he was influenced by his wife Cynthia, who was a member of the Concord Women’s Anti-Slavery Society (A brief biography). Thoreau was born on 12th July, 1817 and died on 6th May, 1862. According to Emerson in “The American Scholar’ man is a mere puppet in the midst of people although he is a man thinking when alone but whatever his state of mind is, it is man that derives ideas from nature and most importantly nature has the answer to all the questions of men. In Thoreau’s ‘Walden; or, Life in The Woods’ what he thinks is that men are confused about the creation of nature and man because if both men and nature were creations of God then how can both good and evil be together. Thoreau tries to show the greed of man and the inadequate resource of nature and at what pace man is consumin...
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...he will of God (American Scholar).
In conclusion both Emerson and Thoreau agree that even though man is an individual yet all men have to depend on one another and that nature is the ultimate answer to all the questions.
Works Cited
Henry David Thoreau. (2014, March 19). Retrieved on 20th March, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson. (2014, March 19). Retrieved on 20th March, 2014 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson
Emerson, R. W. (1836). Nature. Retrieved on 17th April, 2014 from
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/emerson/nature-contents.html
Thoreau, H. D. (1854). Walden; or, life in the woods. Retrieved from
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm
Transcendentalism. (2014, March 12). Retrieved on 20th March, 2014 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism
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know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my
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