‘Then I
said, “I covet truth;
Beauty is
unripe childhood’s cheat;
I leave it
behind with the games of youth.” –
As I spoke, [...]
Beauty
through my senses stole;
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.’
This passage caught my eye because it is so counterintuitive
to me. When Emerson says that taking things out of nature and bringing them
home ruins them, I see that as an interesting viewpoint because it is so
different from what we, as humans, naturally do. We are a consumer society, and
Emerson’s society was no different. It is almost instinct for us to want to
take things home, to possess them and have them belong only to us. We buy
things, we take things, we take photographs of things, and we steal things. It
is ingrained in us to want things.
Emerson, however, argues in this poem that we’ve been doing
it wrong all along. As soon as an object comes home with us, it immediately
loses value. The sparrow’s song was ruined without the river and the sky to
accompany it. The shells were suddenly unsightly once he took them from the
beach. And even the woman became nothing more than “a gentle wife” as soon as
he brought her home. The idea that possessing something automatically ruins it
shakes what humans believe, especially those living in capitalist societies.
I agree with Emerson to a certain extent. Certainly, a field
of wildflowers is more appealing than a daisy sitting on a table. The
environment has an effect on the way that we perceive things. This is true of
everything, from a seashell on the beach to that super cute shirt I almost
bought last week. (It looked better on the mannequin.) On the other hand,
Emerson argues that the object loses all beauty or appeal as soon as it is
removed from its environment. I have to disagree with that. Sure, I look nice
sitting in a garden, but I don’t turn ugly as soon as I walk into the kitchen.
A change of scenery definitely changes the way we perceive something, but that
shift in perception isn’t always straight to negative one hundred on the
attractiveness scale.
Emerson, as a Transcendentalist poet and a lover of nature, predictably
argues that any natural object, once removed from nature, is also removed from
that which makes it unique and beautiful. As a consumer and a human being,
however, I can’t completely agree with that.
- Mary
