Week 4 Assignment

Post your interpretation of this week’s readings.
For this week’s assignment, write a total of 4 full length pages that address each of the works assigned, as well as each of the questions below:
1. Discuss your interpretation of Emerson’s “Nature”.  Why do you think this became such an important and influential text?  
2. Summarize 2 points that Emerson makes that seems to offer new lessons in American Literature.
3. Why do you think Emerson’s works influenced Henry David Thoreau so much?
4. Discuss your interpretation of Thoreau’s Walden.
5. Discuss why you think Thoreau became known as a man of action while Emerson became known as the man of thought.
6. Discuss how Poe’s poems fit the era of Romanticism.
7. Can Poe’s poems help us understand Poe the man?  How so?
8. Discuss how Dickinson’s poems fit the era of Romanticism.
9. Does the fact the Dickinson never intended to have her poetry published (most of her poems were published after she died), affect your reading of her poems?  Can we make better sense of her poetry knowing that it was only intended for her to read?
10. How do the works from this week fit American Transcendentalism?