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Choose one writing topic
– How are you affected by nature? Do you find comfort in it? Do you reflect the moods of nature?
– What is the role of nature in your life?
– What is meant by an individual's spiritual side? How to you define it?
– Is there a connection between the individual's spirit and nature? If so, what is that connection?
– What does it mean to know something intuitively? For example, has a parent or a sibling ever known something was wrong with you without having talked with or seen you? What do we mean when we say "I just know it"?
– How do you demonstrate that you are an individual? Do you think independently of others or do you follow the crowd?
What does “transcendentalism” mean?
• There is an ideal spiritual state which “transcends” the physical and empirical.
• A loose collection of eclectic ideas about literature, philosophy, religion, social reform, and the general state of American culture.
• Transcendentalism had different meanings for each person involved in the movement.
Where did it come from?
• Ralph Waldo Emerson gave German philosopher Immanuel Kant credit for popularizing the term “transcendentalism.”
• It began as a reform movement in the Unitarian church.
• It is not a religion—more accurately, it is a philosophy or form of spirituality.
• It centered around Boston and Concord, MA. in the mid-1800’s.
• Emerson first expressed his philosophy of transcendentalism in his essay Nature.
What did Transcendentalists believe?
The intuitive faculty, instead of the rational or sensical, became the means for a conscious union of the individual psyche (known in Sanskrit as Atman) with the world psyche also known as the Oversoul, life-force, prime mover and G-d (known in Sanskrit as Brahma).
Basic Premise #1
An individual is the spiritual center of the universe, and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual.
Basic Premise #2
The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self—all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."
Basic Premise #3
Transcendentalists accepted the concept of nature as a living mystery, full of signs; nature is symbolic.
Basic Premise #4
The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization—this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies:
1. The desire to embrace the whole world—to know and become one with the world.
2. The desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate—an egotistical existence.
Who were the Transcendentalists?
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• Amos Bronson Alcott
• Margaret Fuller
• Ellery Channing
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• 1803-1882• Unitarian minister• Poet and essayist• Founded the
Transcendental Club• Popular lecturer• Banned from Harvard for
40 years following his Divinity School address
• Supporter of abolitionism
Henry David Thoreau
• 1817-1862• Schoolteacher, essayist,
poet• Most famous for Walden
and Civil Disobedience• Influenced environmental
movement• Supporter of abolitionism
Amos Bronson Alcott
• 1799-1888• Teacher and writer• Founder of Temple
School and Fruitlands• Introduced art, music,
P.E., nature study, and field trips; banished corporal punishment
• Father of novelist Louisa May Alcott
Margaret Fuller
• 1810-1850• Journalist, critic, women’s
rights activist• First editor of The Dial, a
transcendental journal• First female journalist to
work on a major newspaper—The New York Tribune
• Taught at Alcott’s Temple School
Ellery Channing
• 1818-1901• Poet and especially
close friend of Thoreau
• Published the first biography of Thoreau in 1873—Thoreau, The Poet-Naturalist
Read “from Nature”1. What different moods does Emerson note in the excerpt?
2. How is nature connected to these moods?
3. What effect does nature have on Emerson? What does he mean when he says "I become a transparent eyeball"?
4. In what ways does Emerson connect nature, humankind, and God?
5. In what way does Nature serve as a teacher?
6. How is nature portrayed as noble? As a source of comfort?
7. How are human beings represented as part of nature?
8. What can human beings learn from nature? How does this learning affect the individual's spirituality?
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