Category Archives: American literature

Two Defintions of Nature found In Rowlandson

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For this week’s blog I thought it would be a good idea to examine the text “A Narrative of Captivity” by Mary Rowlandson  from two weeks prior because of personal favor for the text and answer one of  the courses  “central questions” in order to get a better grasp on how this text can be viewed as “environmental literature” .  The text will be examined with the focal point of answering the central question- “What kinds of environmental and nature are of interest in the text?  How does the author define these terms (explicitly or implicitly), and how useful are these definitions?” I will focus heavily on the “useful” aspect of the definitions of natures, as I feel it has been covered in class thoroughly how the these texts are anthropocentric or ecocentric and how they align with another important questions such as Buell’s checklist.

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The Rattling Fitchburg Railroad Interrupting Revelation

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The chapter “Sounds” from Walden highlights the Transcendental motif of revelation and spiritual elevation through direct experience with nature instead of through tradition, as represented by books and literature.  As the chapter progresses, Thoreau’s serenity, spiritual elevation and reverence is interrupted by the railroad which after much contemplation, becomes a metaphor for civilization, commerce, and  economic drudgery. The railroad becomes an opposing force, a reoccurring interruption that’s piercing whistle interrupts the pastoral transcendental life Thoreau is leading at Walden Pond.

Thoreau dives straight into revelation by direct experience in the opening of “Sounds”.  “I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans”(Thoreau 97). Instead of reading, Thoreau sits serenely, after a morning bath in his doorway contentedly observing the serenity of his garden, noticing the sunlight and listening to the chirping of birds. “Sometimes in a summer morning,having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in the sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery…in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around…” (Thoreau 97)

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The Steel Horse and his Master (Thoreau)

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On page 82 of Thoreau’s book “Walden Civil Disobedience”, he writes a passage about the train that regularly passes by his home near Walden Pond. He begins by comparing the passing of the train to a sunrise. Usually, a sunrise is seen as something glorious, such as the start of a new day, or hope for the future. Some would even go as far and call it sublime. But Thoreau’s use of the word was quite the opposite. In his exact words, he stated: “I watched the passage of the morning cars with the same feeling that I do the rising sun, which is hardly more regular.” (Thoreau, p.82). What he means by this is that a sunrise is common, much like the roaring train that disturbs his quiet solitude almost every morning. It’s part of his daily ritual to see the sun rise and watch the train haul by with a cargo of passengers and merchandise.

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Emerson: Minister of the Sublime

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Throughout “Nature”, Emerson’s ministry background is evident, but it is especially clear in the “Introduction”.  Like a minister, enlivened by his faith, he asks countless rhetorical questions of the reader, like a preacher to his congregation. “Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not a history of theirs?” This is his initial call for spirituality based on the direct observation of nature, instead of through texts or prophets. Again, playing the good minister, he clarifies his terminology, stating that “Nature” is that which is external to ourselves, “essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf.”
A reoccurring pattern throughout the text is the notion that spirituality and connecting to the divine is achieved by a communion with the sublime. In essence, forgive the rhyme, the sublime is linked to the divine.  In “Chapter 1. Nature”, Emerson jumps immediately into the sublime.

“…if a man would be alone let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give a man, in the heavenly bodies, the perceptual presence of the sublime.”

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Crevecoeur and Rowlandson: Comparing Uses of the Wilderness

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            This past week for Environmental Literature, the class was assigned reading a few different environmental texts. Two of the texts, A Narrative of the Captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer: Letter III-What Is an American, have similar depictions of the wilderness. The wilderness, from class discussion, has often been depicted as a dark and evil landscape separate from civilization. Both Rowlandson and Crevecoeur’s writings share the same characteristics of how the wilderness is depicted.

Mary Rowlandson’s narrative accounts for her experience with being held captive by the Wampanoag Indians, a tribe of Native Americans. Rowlandson’s narrative goes through different periods of her captivity and the trials she had to go through while she was captive. The way of life for the Wampanoag was different to Rowlandson and she viewed it as savage. In the Second Remove of her narrative, Rowlandson described the wilderness as “vast and desolate” (Narrative of Captivity, p. 312 Second Remove). This depiction of the wilderness can be thought of to fit the motif that was discussed in class. Rowlandson’s journey was a long and harsh one as she travelled far into a place away from society under Indian captivity until she would return to society.

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