Arguably the most important “power” that these writers attributed to the individual was the individual’s right to power over their own beings. The ability to self-determine one’s destiny was not only necessary to the underpinnings of enlightenment, but it was also necessary to advance society as a whole. By allowing individuals to have power over their individual being, they became their own masters: no longer subjected by the whims of a larger society. As an illustration of these principles, once released from the tenets of religion, Benjamin Franklin “conceiv’d the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection” (364). By believing in the power of the self and the equality of men he accomplished this without requiring a higher moral authority , Franklin defined his own moral perfection and strove to achieve it. The power the individual has over the self is absolute, but as Poe warns, this can be used for ill: in Poe’s tale of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” his protagonist envisions the world around him through the filter of his own demented mind. The conflicts in the character’s internal self become so profuse that he projects them externally and creates an old man whose eye haunts him, and he is eventually undone when he fails to recognize the beatings of his own heart. This absolute power is both the greatest curse and privilege of the Enlightenment and Romantic views of the self, so rather than leaving this power unchecked, they emphasized the power of Nature as both the antithesis to the self and the guide of the self.

Even though the release from mortal authority and the servitude of religion was central to the Enlightenment, they did not banish the Deities. Instead they either personified deities as part of the natural world which allowed the individual the opportunity to be “part or particle of God” (Emerson, 657) or defined the deities as separate from the world and as a creator but not a participatory member of the universe. Franklin was one of the original Deisitic writers in American Literature, and believed in the separation of religion from God because of the oppressive and meddlesome nature of churches which mixed their theology “with other Articles which without any tendency to inspire, promote or confirm Morality, serv’d principally to divide us & make us unfriendly to one another” (Franklin, 363). As Romantic writing developed it moved the Enlightened Deity from the role of creator into the natural world by blending the deity into Nature and science. This natural view of God continued the deistic way of thinking, and removed much of the remaining power of the organized churches allowing people to find and define their own personal church, and while some created cathedrals out of mountains and trees, others made theirs out of numbers, facts and figures creating the first conflicts between the mystical nature and the exacting sciences.

While the individual had the power to determine their own personal beliefs, some found that they were still oppressed by things they could not control: science became increasingly important, and to some, this was as oppressive as the monarchs and gods of the past. Their objection was that in becoming the absolute authority, science created a monochromatic image of the world which stifled the individual’s ability to perceive the world around him for what he believed it was; however, others quickly realized that science allowed them to open their eyes and see the world both as it was and how it could be. Poe and Thoreau, in a clash between bright and dark romanticism, viewed science differently with the more middle-of-the-road approach being attributed to to the bright romantics. In Poe’s “Sonnet “” to Science” he attacks the mundane aspects of science and refers to it as a “Vulture! whose wings are dull realities” (1223), but Thoreau, in his journals, embraces science, but believes that one can only truly appreciate something when one “forget[s] all [their] learning and get[s] rid of what is called knowledge”. Poe believes that the science accosts his creativity and stifles his ability to be an individual and exercise his hard-won individualism, but Thoreau is capable of independently appreciating nature even if his opinions are invalidated by science because he believes that his power over his own perceptions is absolute, so balancing the science with the mystery of Nature and the joy of poetic expression is not difficult him or other “bright” romantics. These two different views of science are brought about by the way the writers treat science: Poe personified science and held it blamable rather than as a tool, but Thoreau treats science as a tool and because of this, he is able to cast it aside when it is unnecessary while Poe’s creations and imaginings are constantly surrounded, attacked and restrained by a personified science which replaces the monarchs and gods. For writers of similar beliefs to Poe, this restriction by science was contrary to the ideals of Romanticism, and created a stumbling block that hemmed in the powers of the individual.

The only restrictions on the individual, other than the perception of a restrictive science and or those self-imposed, were the restrictions of society itself. These societal restrictions are not the same as the restrictions of a Monarch, but are the attempts of society to control the individual and harness their powers for the good of society itself. To the Romantics, this acceptance of societal pressures was a sort of voluntary defeat which according to some, like Thoreau, was necessary because not all were capable of fully controlling their own lives (820). Thoreau believed that most people spent their lives “sleeping” only using their minds for menial pursuits and living lives “of quiet desperation” (813). However, while Thoreau allowed for control of these sleepers, he believed that should a man wish to remove themselves from the societal order, they should be allowed to: regardless of its effects on the society itself. Thus, the individual is simultaneously an integral component of society, but also transcends such mean concerns when it is necessary for the individual to exercise their powers of reason, imagination, logic and creation.

The writers of the the Enlightenment and Romantic period defined the individual as the reasoning and logical self which interacts with the larger external world, and the powers they attributed to their creation were immense, but they tempered the powers of the individual with the power and mystery of nature. This individualistic view of the self replaced the mean collectivism of European society and formed the foundation of modern perceptions of the individual.

The railroad was not all bad, even in Thoreau’s opinion, it has many good qualities, but these are not redeeming qualities. While these good qualities may soften the image of the railroad’s negative qualities, they do not absolve it. He liked the fact the railroad brought people to new places and to experience new things and in the process to have new thoughts, but he considered the railroad as way for people to go in a straight line to nowhere that one could get on and off with out a thought in their head. Thoreau understood the material benefits brought by the railroad, the food, and the pay for the farmer’s goods, books, culture, and also most other things people needed, but he considered most of these items needless things that distracted men from the pursuit of thought. He said that although it brings books in it “but down goes the wit that writes them”(Thoreau 75). He thought that even though bringing books in so people can read them is good, people should be writing their own books and thinking their own thoughts rather than reading someone else’s.

One of the most important issues concerning the railroad to Thoreau was the way in interacted with nature. He hated how the railroad had infected all of the area and disrupted the flow of nature; he scorned the thought of a boy who ran away from his uncle because he missed the city and train whistle “you couldn’t even hear the whistle! I doubt if there is such a place in Massachusetts now” (Thoreau 75). But this view was limited to the train itself. In his poem “What’s the railroad to me” (Thoreau 25), he talks about how the railroad tracks cleared areas create fields for blueberries, and the banks give homes to the swallows. Thoreau also talks about how he will “never go to see where it ends” (Thoreau 25), the railroad tracks themselves he thought were “like a cart-path in the woods” (Thoreau 25) something that was there but did not concern him and that he did not need. He considered the railroad tracks themselves to become part of nature after they were laid, rather than a constant thorn in nature’s side as the train was and continued to be over the centuries that followed.

The human cost of the railroad was just as important to Thoreau; he spoke of two costs, one that affected the body of man and one that affected the mind. Thoreau stated that the railroad was built on the backs of sleepers. Although literally the term sleepers refers to the wood that the tracks run one, sleepers was also a sub-textual term Thoreau used to refer to the workers that would not think for themselves but instead just worked to build the railroad and for the many people that had died building the railroad. Thoreau considered the two to be the same; the death of the body was just as bad, and just as destructive, as the death of the mind. “If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads?” (Thoreau 60). Thoreau thought that we chose to waste our lives away, working for unnecessary things and pleasures. Thoreau believed the effort put into the railroad and other, in his mind, unnecessary endeavors should be instead put into an effort to change the way lives are lived, and to spend more time in thought and contemplation.

However, Thoreau is a man of opposites, symbolism, and contradictions; the railroad was not the main issue he was arguing. The railroad was the symbol of something big and bold that everybody knew about. Instead, Thoreau was using the railroad as a crutch to hold up all the problems humanity has created and caused. He broke the qualities of the train into symbols, ones that paralleled the faults he found in humanity. All of Thoreau’s references to the train can be directly tied to aspects of human nature that Thoreau despised.

Thoreau says, “The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter” thus as humans have penetrated all aspects of the world, leaving none of the areas of the world untouched by human hands. Thoreau also hates the dependence men have on their technology “Nor is there any man so independent on his farm that he can say [to the train] nay”. He continues his symbolism with:”[the railroad is like an] iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils” his reference to a mythical beast of fire and destruction, or one of the horsemen of the apocalypse could easily be construed as humans bringing about destruction and terror on themselves and those around them. He further speaks of the human rape of nature “If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends”then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their escort”(Thoreau 76). The unspoken part is that men do not use the elements of nature for any noble end, that instead he takes what he wants without any concern for who or what he destroys.
The railroad for Thoreau was the antithesis of his ideals, it forced men to give up thinking, the train allowed them to go from on place to another far a way without a thought. The railroad in his mind destroyed nature as it was laid, but it was the train that kept the wound fresh. Thoreau considered the train to be a needless distraction in life, a purveyor of the rat race way of life; men zipping around with no concern on how they got to were they ended up. Thoreau hated the way the land, people and nature was pushed aside in order that the railroad could be laid. On this account, he was completely correct as the Midwestern Native Americans and the American buffalo could obviously attest to. But progress is a large part of the human ideal; without being able to strive for something humans rather than sitting and thinking, just sit, thus without things like the railroad and later automobiles humans would not think at all, leaving Thoreau’s purpose to fail. Even though Thoreau was correct with most of his complaints about the railroad and other aspects of humans desire for things, the larger picture is without it humans would not have become what they are today, whether this is good or bad is left up to you.

Works cited
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden or Life in the Woods. Dover Thrift Editions, 1995.
Thoreau, Henry David. Collected Poems of Henry Thoreau. Ed. Carl Bode. Baltimore:
The John Hopkins Press, 1964.