Nature As God: The Interchangeability of Agape and Natural Love in Emerson's Works (2012)

Undergraduate: Rebecca Rohrer

Faculty Advisor: Jordynn Jack
Department: Anthropology

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This presentation will examine the rhetoric of Ralph Waldo Emerson as he developed the foundation of Transcendentalism. Being raised by a Unitarian Pastor, Emerson similarly trained to be a pastor while attending Seminary. Emerson’s earlier works of Self-Reliance and Nature encapsulate many of his younger theological views. As Emerson thoughts on nature developed, his rhetoric changed accordingly. His later works illustrate interchangeability in Agape and love of nature. Emerson constantly uses references to the spiritual or Godly to describe Nature. In this presentation, I will argue that in Emerson’s rhetoric Love of God and Love of Nature are synonymous creating a form of Natural Religion that characterizes Emerson and Transcendentalism in general. I will show that Emerson’s rhetoric embodies his belief in Nature’s power to ascend the individual to the spiritual. From Emerson's first works to his last works, his rhetoric illustrates an increasing synonymy between God and Nature. Emerson’s later works remain widely unrecognized among the general public, but it was many of his later beliefs that incorporated nondualism and influenced his successors and contemporaries such as Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau.