Nineteenth century was a period of nation-building for the Americans. Thus, most of the nineteenth century American literature was preoccupied with the meaning of America, the destiny of America, and the promise of America. But as industrialism gathered speed, it squeezed out the consciousness of all, and the new society's dynamism filled many with dread. Amidst this society in a flux, emerged an American sage and seer Ralph Waldo Emerson. He spoke to a nineteenth century that was ready for an emphasis on individualism and responsive to a new optimism that linked God, Nature, and Man into a magnificent cosmos. Emerson's Nature (1836) was the first definitive statement of his philosophical perspective. The ideas which Emerson endorsed inNature found explicit moral and practical application in Thoreau, which he records inWalden: Or, Life in the Woods (1854). This paper examines Emerson'sNature and Thoreau's Walden which present two vital visions concerning Nature: first, the spiritual vision of envisioning the earth as a sacred being and the belief that a Nature-centered consciousness should take hold upon the earth; and second, the environmental vision of living in balance or harmony with nature, i.e., truly adapting to the needs of nature. In modern parlance, it means adopting a `bioregionalist' attitude, i.e., living within the bounty provided by a place and not altering a place to suit our tastes.

These lines from Thoreau's Walden (1982, p. 88) very succinctly represent the symbolic paradigm of a quest for self-fulfillment in an elemental life, as opposed to the artificiality of an urban cultural life. Emerson's Nature was the first definitive statement of this philosophical perspective. It was a definitive statement on individualism and a new optimism that linked God, Nature, and Man into a magnificent cosmos. The ideas which Emerson had endorsed in Nature found explicit moral and practical application in Thoreau's Walden: Or, Life in the Woods. These classics of American nature writing came as a balm to a society on the throes of societal upheavals. Nineteenth century America was a society in a state of flux, concerned as it was with the notion of nation-building. As industrialism gathered speed, it squeezed out the consciousness of all, and the new society's dynamism filled many with dread.

These words register Emerson's protest against the existing conceptual framework of perceiving nature. What Emerson envisions in the above words is a communion with nature through personal experience. The emergence of modern science in the West in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led to the belief that nature was meant to be subordinated by man. This `conceptual framework' consists in the belief that, as asserted by Francis Bacon, "Nature must be `bound into service' and made a `slave,' `put in constraint,' and `molded' by the mechanical arts" (Merchant, 1992, p. 46). This emphasis, based on the paradigm of dominance, has led to an imbalance in our values and attitudes, which lies at the very root of our current ecological crisis. This crisis, in turn, led to the development of Ecocriticism as an academic discipline in the 1990s. The development of eco-writing in the twentieth century, however, owes its genesis, to a large extent, to the British Romantic writers of the early nineteenth century and the American Transcendentalists.

American Literature Journal, Eco-Ethical Paradigm, Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Transcendentalists, Ecological Crisis, Conceptual Framework, Political Structures, Environmental Ethic, Social Evolution, Cultural Values, Social Structures.