The theory of forms manifests itself in the exposition on nature, when Emerson states that beauty, though important to the senses, is not the final cause of nature but is part of man's journey in attaining reason and understanding. Goodness, a companion of Beauty, is also linked to the Supreme Being, a unique facet of Emerson's Neoplatonism. He states in a dialogue on Plato and the divided line, "The four operations of the soul correspond--conjecture, faith, understanding, and reason. As every pool reflects the image of the sun, so every thought and thing restores us an image and creature of the supreme Good. The universe is perforated by a million channels for his activity. All things mount and mount" (Gross 130). Although these components of nature are sometimes vague, and immersed in mysticism, they are all closely linked and undoubtedly interrelated.
The mystic thought and refrences to Arabic or eastern culture (which are sometimes used out of their true context, by Emerson) pervading Nature and other works, are a large part of Emerson's poetical sense of nature. Romanticism,a movement begun by Rousseau in the philosophical tradition, was a movement that paralleled transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was influenced by Idealism, which tells us, all that exists are minds and ideas. In the literary sphere, Romanticism, as presented by the Lake poets Coleridge and Wordsworth saw nature in a way similar to Emerson. But poems such as Blake's "The Tyger" and Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" were poems in awe of nature's fierceness and strength, with man at the mercy of nature, rather than its controller. Emerson himself wrote poems that were consistent with these ideals such as "The Snow Storm", which suggest distinctions between Emerson as a philosopher and Emerson as a poet.
Amena Hassan