Light Reveals Wilderness

          This poem, I have to admit, posed a vexing riddle for me for a few days.  As I went about my business – driving to school, fixing supper, scooping the cat box – I could be heard muttering under my breath, “But Light a newer Wilderness/ My Wilderness has made,” over and over, as if repetition could somehow bring about revelation.  Maybe it actually did help a little, because eventually it dawned on me (sorry, couldn’t resist) what Dickinson may have meant.  I think in this poem she was defining wilderness as the unknown, or unexplored territory, and representing light as knowledge or understanding.  When she says, “Had I not seen the Sun/ I could have borne the shade,” I think she is referring to the way that a little learning expands our knowledge but also reveals how much we don’t know or understand.  To paraphrase Martha Beck, one of my favorite authors, we learn a lot about how much we have to learn (Expecting Adam, 5). 

            I think Emerson understood this definition of wilderness, although he doesn’t call it that.  In Chapter V of Nature, he writes, “…we are impressed and even daunted by the immense Universe to be explored.  ‘What we know, is a point to what we do not know’” (505), a quote that is attributed to both Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Joseph Butler.  Emerson continues, “Open any recent journal of science, and weight the problems suggested concerning Light, Heat, Electricity, Magnetism, Physiology, Geology, and judge whether the interest of natural science is likely to be soon exhausted” (505).  At the same time, Emerson also viewed nature as the greatest teacher:  “Every property of matter is a school for the understanding…the understanding adds, divides, combines, measures, and finds everlasting nutriment and room for its activity in this worthy scene” (504).  In addition to physical properties, Emerson believed that nature is also the best teacher of ethics:  “The moral influence of nature upon every individual is that amount of truth which it illustrates to him.  Who can estimate this?  Who can guess how much firmness the sea-beaten rock has taught the fisherman?  How much tranquility has been reflected to man from the azure sky…?” (506). 

            The way I defined wilderness in my first blog posting for this course was very narrow in comparison to either Dickinson’s or Emerson’s definitions.  I have learned so much from the reading, writing, and discussion of literature that we’ve done in this course!  But, like Dickinson, this “Light a newer Wilderness/ My Wilderness has made” – I’ve learned that my ignorance is much wider and deeper than I even guessed!  So many authors I have yet to read, so many poems to read out loud, so many ideas to wrestle with and mutter under my breath until they yield some meaning to me!  So much unfamiliar territory to explore, and rich and wonderful treasure to be discovered; so many mysteries to solve!  I’ve truly enjoyed exploring literature with all of you this semester, and I wish each of you much joy in learning on your journeys of discovery.

Whitman and Wilderness

            I think Walt Whitman looked at nature and delighted in the handiwork of God.  I love his poem #31 from “Song of Myself” which begins:        

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,

And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,

And the tree-toad is a chief-d’oeuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,

And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,

And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,

And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.        (663-69)

Whitman sees himself, and all his fellow human beings, as being just as much a part of nature and equally worthy, as he says at the beginning of poem #1:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.     (1-3)

I think Whitman probably defines wilderness as everything in the natural world, including people, at least our natural physical selves.  This is not dissimilar to the way I defined it in my first blog posting:  “The root word “wild” connotes to me an untamed spirit of nature unconfined by human technology and restrictions.  It also makes me think of innocence, pristine and uncorrupted.”  I think Whitman’s definition is at the same time broader and more specific, though – he was an amazingly inclusive person!

            Although Whitman frequently expresses unconditional love for humanity in his poetry, he is far less enamored of the works of man.  In poem #30 he says,

Logic and sermons never convince,

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.                  (653-54)

I think he could see that when we humans cut ourselves off from nature, when we get too hung up on our own works and words, our arts and our sciences, we run the risk of becoming disconnected from our deep selves and thus disconnected from God.  The poem “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” from the By the Roadside section of Leaves of Grass, articulates Whitman’s perspective on this contrast:

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.            (1-8)

I feel like I know just what the poet means.  I myself love science and technology, literature and the arts, but if I spend too much time indoors, buried in books or sitting in front of the computer, I become “tired and sick” too.  I have to get outside, go for a walk in the woods, see the sky and the trees, feel the wind in my hair.  Then I feel like my whole, real self again.  Thank goodness there are many places we can go – city, county, state, and national parks and nature preserves – to interact with the natural world and reconnect with ourselves.  Thank goodness our democracy ensures that these are places where we all can go, not just people who are rich enough to own land!