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American Transcendentalism

“ It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, always do what you are afraid to do.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

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Transcendentalism

• Relationship between man and nature. Heightened awareness of this relationship would cause a “reformation” of society away from materialism and corruption. 3

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Transcendentalism

• A literary movement that established a clear “American voice”.

• Emerson first expressed his philosophy in his essay “Nature”.

• A belief in a higher reality than that achieved by human reasoning.

• Suggests that every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth through intuition.

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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.

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 God (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.

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Transcendentalism

• Believed in living close to nature/importance of nature. Nature is the source of truth and inspiration.

• Taught the dignity of manual labor• Advocated self-trust/ confidence• Valued individuality/non-

conformity/free thought• Advocated self-reliance/ simplicity

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

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“Self-reliance” -Emerson

• “What I must do is all that concerns me,

not what people think…”

• “…to be great is to be misunderstood”

Henry David Thoreau

• 1817-1862

• Schoolteacher, essayist, poet

• Most famous for Walden and Civil Disobedience

• Influenced environmental movement

• Supporter of abolitionism

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“Nature”• Thoreau began “essential” living• Built a cabin on land owned to Emerson in

Concord, Mass. near Walden Pond• Lived alone there• for two years studying • nature and seeking • truth within himself

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“I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it has to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

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“Still we live meanly like ants.”“Our life is frittered away by detail.”

“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?”

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a

thousand.”

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Walden

• The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!

Individuality

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• “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

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“Civil Disobedience”• Thoreau’s essay urging passive, non-

violent resistance to governmental policies to which an individual is morally opposed.

• Influenced individuals such a Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez

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

Resources

• American Transcendental Web: http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/index.html

• American Transcendentalism: http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/amtrans.htm

• PAL: Chapter Four http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/4intro.html