The transcendentalist movement was being formed by Emerson and people with similar interests in the 1830s, with the majority of ideas being presented at the Transcendental Club. It consisted of a hand-full of members that originally met to talk about their critiques on societal institutions, among many other things (American Transcendental web). Thoreau was born 14 years after Emerson, and was not part of pioneering transcendentalism in these formative meetings, but was greatly inspired by Emerson’s essay Nature as a youth. He went on to refine the movement with a different voice than Emerson, one that’s particularly engaging, at least to me. Thoreau, the contemporary, was less poetic than the master, Emerson, but only by default. Emerson was abstract to an extreme, in order to push the limits of the movement he was a part of… the transparent eye-ball passage speaks for itself. His language was highly stylized, using regular rhetorical statements, like when talking about stars, “Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are!” As well as backward-Yoda-speak, “But every night come out, these envoys of beauty…” Both examples of this stylized language are found within the first paragraph of the first chapter of Nature.

Thoreau was more calculated, a privilege provided by the fact that he was able to build upon the transcendental fundamentals that had already been laid for him. He took things that were worth reflecting upon from an abstract description to something more grounded. He describes the way he hears the noise of the train cars coming through the forest to his cabin in Walden: Sounds. “There came to me a melody… which the air had strained, which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood… modulating, echoed from vale to vale. The echo to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it.” (pg. 87) He incorporates a scientific approach into his art. This allows him to represent an abstract thought, like the consequences of choice, in a new light, as “there are many ways a radii can be drawn from one centre” (pg. 11) Walden as a whole was born out of experiment, an inspiration to build one’s own shelter, live self-reliantly, observe Nature, and report on one’s findings.

Thoreau supplements this objectivity with a tendency to draw from a wide range of sources to back up his point. He draws on things you might expect like Greek philosophers and the Bible, yet also references the Vishnu Purana, a Hindu scripture, Confucius, and even the culture of an indigenous Brazilian tribe “For I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word” (pg. 79). Contrastly, Emerson uses a lot of language associated with religion, and a barrage of Bible references. This Biblical typology is rooted in the transcendental idea to re-shape ideology toward a new, eco-centric one. Emerson says how the fields and woods “minister” to one, how the art of Nature is “divine”, and how every fact is a “spiritual” fact. Thus, he’s molding the existing capacities for beauty and classical “reason” of his readers into a respect for Nature instead of social constructs.  Thoreau built on this foundation with even more provocative styles and imagery, like the way he describes smoke from the train shadowing sunlight that was meant to ripen his beloved beans (pg. 82).