“And then he invented a new life for himself, taking up residence at the ragged margin of our society, wandering across North America in search of raw, transcendent experience.”

~Jon Krakauer, Author’s Note of Into the Wild

The next book we are going to read—Into the Wild—is a nonfiction work about the life a young man named Chris McCandless who was very inspired by writings from the American Transcendental movement.

Who Were theNew England

Transcendentalists?(1830 - 1850)

Who were the Transcendentalists?

Transcendentalism was a 19th Century literary, philosophical, and social movement—an offshoot from Romanticism.

It began as a Boston discussion club—a group of thinkers sharing ideas.

Who were the Transcendentalists?Who were the Transcendentalists?

radical scholars and writers

believed in the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition.

Who were the Transcendentalists?

• a generation of people struggling to define spirituality and religion in a way that took into account the new understandings their age made possible.

Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson summed up the beliefs of

Transcendentalism when he wrote:

Philosopher/poet/writer who got the Transcendental ball rolling

Ralph Waldo Emerson• Was supposed to become a minister like his

father and entered Harvard at 14.

• Became a Unitarian minister but resigned because of disbelief in some of the church’s central doctrines. He left for Europe, where he hung out with British Romantic poets.

Ralph Waldo Emerson• 1837--gave a controversial speech at Harvard

for divinity students where he called for a rejection of institutional religion

• He called for a personal relationship with God and argued that religious truth “cannot be reached at second hand.”

• Because of this radical speech, he was not allowed to speak at Harvard for 30 years

"We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.”

~from Emerson’s 1837 Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Address

What idea from this excerpt from Emerson’s speech probably seemed radical in 1837 (and perhaps to some today)?

The Over-Soul

• Emerson believed in a unifying soul--kind of a common heart--in which every person’s particular being is contained and made one with all others.

• His belief has much in common with Hinduism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Late 1860s - he was one of the most popular

speakers of the Lyceum program--a traveling lecture program. He delivered more than 1000 speeches.

Emerson’s famous 1836 essay Nature

• advocates that we should engage in an intense, non-traditional appreciation of nature

• suggests divinity permeates all of nature

• claims we can only understand reality through studying nature

An allusion to Emerson that we will encounter when reading Into the Wild

• “After piloting [his Datsun] west out of Atlanta, [McCandless] arrived in Lake Mead National Recreation Area on July 6, riding a giddy Emersonian high” (Krakauer 27).

Transcendentalist Principles

• Believed that divinity was present in both nature and the human soul

Transcendentalist Principles• We can find God directly—not second hand—

when spending time in nature.

Transcendentalist Principles

• Society, conformity, and tradition often prevents people from reaching a higher spiritual level.

Transcendentalist Principles

• The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self.

• All knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to the Ancient Greek aphorism: "know thyself."

The Transcendentalists…

• argued fiercely for the end of slavery

• sought to improve public education, women’s rights, and help for the mentally ill

The Transcendentalists…were IDEALISTS

• formed experimental utopian groups—such as Brook farm—with the hope of creating a more perfect society.

Brook Farm--home to a utopian community in Boston

The Transcendentalists…were IDEALISTS