“Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as his main end; the other Truth.”
These two lines from “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson really caught my attention while I was reading. In this quote, Emerson is talking of the difference between being descriptive in a passage on nature versus being truly factual and straightforward. It is suggesting that the poet writes for people to enjoy his writing where the philosopher is writing for personal fulfillment. This line really caught my attention because I could relate it to my life in some ways. I took that the poet would use very flowery language to describe something in nature and that the philosopher would be very concrete and to the point. This really describes the relationship that my sister and I have with description and writing. She is very wordy and I very concrete. It was interesting to be able to relate something as famous as a passage by Emerson to my life. The passage not only connected to the rest of the passage on nature, but I was able to connect it to my everyday life.
2 comments:
Hi!
That's awesome that you were able to connect something Emerson said with your life! I agree with you about the philosophers and the poets, I think that's definately the point he was trying to get across.
I really like how you connected the quote to your life, which is pretty awesome. I agree with your interpretation of the quote, with the poet using ornaments and other extra, flowing, pretty language, while the philosopher just wants to get his version of the truth across as clearly as possible; flowery language would just distract from the point he was trying to make as a philosopher. But yes, that is a great connection that you made. :)
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