american transcendentalism - mrs. bell's...

1!

American Transcendentalism

(1830’s–1900)"

Goal: To understand transcendentalism, a period within the romantic movement. "

“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."

3!

Transcendentalism in Film"

!  Watch the following film clip from Dead Poets’ Society and, as you watch, determine the central ideas about life that are communicated."

"!  Note details that support your

answer."

3!

Tea Party Goal: To become acquainted with literary quotations that reflect the transcendentalist movement. "• You will meet with as many people

as possible and read your quote to them. That is ALL you can say. "

• Even if the person you meet has the same quote as you, both will read. "

• Meet with 7 different people; one-on-one. "

TranscendentalismGoal: To determine how the tenets of transcendentalism are reflected in key literary works. "

!  Major tenets"!  Nature"!  Universal Soul"!  Here & Now"!  Nonconformity"!  Self-reliance"!  Simplicity"

• DIRECTIONS"• Determine which

tenet of transcendentalism that your quote is referencing. Your group will be asked to explain why when your quote appears. "

Nature"

!  “Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of creation so to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our mind, the order of things can satisfy.”"" " " "- Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Universal Soul"

!  “All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.” "" " " "- Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Here and Now"

!  “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.” "" " " "- Henry David Thoreau"

Nonconformity"

!  “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 which he hears, however measured or far away.”"" " " "- Henry David Thoreau "

Self-Reliance"

!  “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide.”"" " "- Ralph Waldo Emerson"

Simplicity"

!  “I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.”"" " " "- Henry David Thoreau"

Transcendentalism

Transcend: [verb] to go beyond the limits of; exceed; be above and independent of

the physical universe

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."

Who founded it?"

!  Usually Emerson and Thoreau are considered the earliest American Transcendentalists."

So what is Transcendentalism?"

!  Transcendentalism has been described as a literary movement, a philosophy, and to some, a spiritual awakening. "

"!  While transcendentalists have slightly

different interpretations of the movement, most agree on several main ideas."

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 G-d, 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"

Philosophically: • Transcendentalists believed there was an inherent connection between all living elements and human beings.

They believed that through the attainment of knowledge, human beings could transcend the limitations of the physical senses and attain spiritual awareness and enlightenment.

They believed that this knowledge resided within an individual and could be accessed through meditation, self-awareness, and communing with nature.

Spiritually:

•  Personal belief and meditation was valued over organized worship and services.

•  No mediator, such as a priest or minister, was necessary for a person to experience a connection with the divine.

They contended that there is a spark of the divine in all human beings and nature, and that if we understand ourselves and are true to ourselves, then we are also true to God.

“The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we—through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?” -Emerson

The Transparent Eyeball could simultaneously absorb and observe information while being part of that information was a symbolic representation of these ideas.

Literary:

• Transcendentalists, like their fictional counterparts the Romantics, were trying to forge a distinctly American literature and philosophy that valued the power of the individual.

The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind … he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy. He wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to the state of man … that is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal. Thus, the spiritual measure of inspiration is the depth of the thought, and never, who said it? And so he resists all attempts to palm other rules and measures on the spirit than its own....

- Emerson

The Oversoul Emerson espoused belief in a force called the Oversoul.

• The Oversoul was the divine spirit or mind that was present in every man and in all of nature. It was an all-pervading, omniscient, supreme mind. Each part of nature or of humanity was a reflection of the divine mind.

Our minds are connected to all other minds, all of nature and therefore all of god. There is a direct connection between this new spiritual trinity, that ironically demands and defines a unity between them.

The whole of the cosmos could be extrapolated from each particular. In each manifestation, or creation of God, man could discover, in a simpler form, all universal laws at work.

In how many churches… is man made sensible that he is an infinite Soul? That the earth and heavens are passing into his mind? That he is drinking forever the soul of God? . . . But now the priest’s Sabbath has lost the splendor of nature; it is unlovely; we are glad when it is done; we can make, we do make, even sitting in our pews, a far better, holier, sweeter, for ourselves.

- Emerson

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"