Sites of Solitude: Situating the Wilderness of Nature in Wei-Jin Dark Learning and Emerson

Abstract

For Daoism, the wilderness of nature beyond human society has often been viewed as a site for eremitic retreat in spiritual solitude, a realm where an individual can transcend the limits of social existence. While this tradition flourished in the early medieval Wei-Jin period, Daoism-inspired Dark Learning thinkers of the time also explored ways in which such a realm of solitude could be attained and enjoyed without the necessity of leaving behind the mundane world, an endeavor that has clear parallels with the function of solitude in Emerson’s Transcendentalism. This paper focuses on three sites where both Emerson and Dark Learning thinkers located such access to solitude: aesthetic appreciation of nature, metaphysical speculation, and authentic social relationships. In both Emerson and Dark Learning, the universal implications of metaphysical speculation provided a path by which the solitude and independence attainable in the wilderness of nature could be connected to individuals in social life, providing a foundation for ethics outside of traditional authority that led both Emerson and Dark Learning to face similar criticisms from more conservative contemporaries.