"Idealism" by Ralph Emerson

 The purpose of this analysis is to examine the ideas, feelings and thoughts that the author possess about nature as a whole and also figure out the techniques he deploys in order to support his way of thinking.

 The author portrays the universe in a way that depicts his optimism in it. He retorts that there will be no point in him trying hard to determine whether what he is informed about nature is always correct and true. He feels that it will not make any sense for him to put efforts in trying to establish the accuracy of the matter. In the second paragraph, he uses a rhetorical question to support this feeling that he holds. He asks “what difference does it make, whether Orion is up there in heaven, or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?” the fact that he still exists in the universe satisfies him a lot. There is the use of personification especially when the author tries to relate himself closer to nature and in the 7^th paragraph he asserts his continued prop up for nature as he confirms that “Nature is made to conspire with spirits to emancipate us”. This is a clear indication that the writer believes in true liberation from nature around him in the 2^nd last paragraph, the writer affirms that he has a “child’s love” to “Mother Nature”. This in essence is a personification that he uses to create a much more close relationship with nature that he adores so much. He also uses hyperbole to increase the level of perception upon which he views nature. In the 9^th paragraph, the writer says that poets “invests dust and stones with humanity, and makes them the words of the Reason” meaning that nature comes out of an extraordinary phenomenon that although unexplainable, marvels the universe. He also uses metaphors to draw a comparison upon which he basically views the same. In the 7^th paragraph, the writer compares the normality of nature with “A man, who seldom rides, needs only to get into a coach and traverse his own town, to turn the street into a puppet-show”. There is the use of imagery which the author uses to portray the normalcy of the environment or rather the universe as a whole. He writes “Thus, in his sonnets, the lays of birds, the scents and dyes of flowers, he finds to be the shadow of his beloved; time, which keeps her from him, is his chest; the suspicion she has awakened, is her ornament”. In order to depict his closeness to nature, the writer uses similes to portray the comparison. For instance, in the 2^nd last paragraph, he writes “I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons”. This is a clear reflection of the love that he has for nature as a whole. It’s ironical that both the philosopher and the poet use different words to depict nature but all agree to one thing: beauty.

 The writer continues to applause nature and uses paradox to maintain his stand point concerning events that revolve upon it. For instance, it’s paradoxical for nature to remain calm and cold towards those people who explores it negatively. It’s evidently true that no human being is its enemy in fact it accepts whatsoever befalls upon it and gives lesson to both the good and the bad. In the last paragraph the author writes this about nature “It is a watcher more than a doer, and it is a doer only that it may better watch.” The climax of this essay is portrayed when the writer uses simple language to explain to reader of how he feels about his surrounding and uses stronger points to do this: He confirms that nature is a friend to everyone.

 All in all, the essay has analyzed the writer’s feelings about the universe and his support for it