Consider the quote below. state its author's name, the title of the work it comes from, and provide a (8-10) sentence explication of its overall meaning and significance to the work it comes from.

Question

"But what could [the lights] have signified that they should seem so horrible to me? Why did this peaceful vision of hazy wonder, which had transported the imagination of my childhood self, now strike me with such terror? These were not the colors I had loved; this could not be the house. Yet it was, for there at the window stood its owner, and the sight of her thin smiling face for some reason was not right."

Answer 1

American Transcendentalism is a nineteenth century trend in literature that is rooted in ancient Greek, mainly Socrates and Plato, as well as Eastern philosophy, especially Daoism and Hinduism. Following Transcendentalism, when you indulge yourself in society and material comforts, you become a slave of such material things. The only way to have self-freedom is to be isolated from society and material concerns.

  Henry D. Thoreau and Ralph W. Emerson are good examples of this trend. In his book Walden, Thoreau narrates in the first person what he experiences in some dwelling in the full nature, isolated from society, in the attempt to grasp what individual freedom really means. Being in Nature is the only way to experience the Divine, considering that one does not need any intermediary to experience the Divine within themselves. The past is gone, and the future is nonexistent. So, all we have is the present. Living in the present inside nature is another way to happiness.

  The widespread dissatisfaction, anxiety and despair are nothing but the outcomes of the modern civilization. That explains Thoreau’s advice for everyone to deeply investigate the “Self” to improve their own spiritual conditions. The Divine, in that sense, is in no way related to any institution or status quo. Instead, the Divine is within the “Self” and can only be attained within the “Self” through solitude and simplicity. This is, in fact, the message that Thoreau intends to convey in the book Walden.