Transcript Transcendentalism & Dark Romanticism

TRANSCENDENTALISM
&
DARK ROMANTICISM
By Yawen Lin and Laurie Kwok
2nd period PDP English II
TRANSCENDENTALISM
•
Everything is a reflection of God:
- People are inherently without sin
•
Contemplating Nature will allow you
to transcend the real world and to a
higher, more spiritual level:
- Nature is the closest to God whilst
society keeps people from a higher
spiritual level
•
A person’s intuition can lead to
contemplation of God
•
Individualism and self-reliance is
better than tradition and following
others
•
Emotions and natural feelings are
more valuable than book knowledge
TRANSCENDENTALIST
AUTHORS / POETS
• Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882): an American essayist, poet,
and author who focuses heavily on
individualism. Works include:
“Essays: First/Second Series” and
“Representative Men”
• Henry David Thoreau (18171862): an American author, poet,
philosopher, and naturalist who
focuses heavily on both
individualism and self-reliance.
Works include: “Resistance to Civil
Government” and “Walden”
DARK ROMANTICISM
•
Emphasizes human faults and
proneness to sin and self-destruction
•
Explored the conflict between good and
evil, the psychological effects of guilt
and sin, and madness in the human
mind
• Valued intuition over logic and
reason
• Believed that spirituality lie behind
the masks of nature
• Saw the blankness of horror and
evil
DARK ROMANTIC
AUTHORS / POETS
• Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849):
an American poet, author, and
literary critic who focuses on
tales on mystery and ghastly
atmosphere. Works include: “The
Raven”, “The Black Cat”, and
“The Tell-Tale Heart”.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne (18041864): an American novelist and
short story writer who focuses on
the inherent evil and sin of
humanity. Works include: The
Scarlet Letter, “Twice Told Tales”,
and The House of the Seven
Gables.
TRANSCENDENTALIST OR DARK ROMANTIC?
CAN YOU GUESS? EXPLAIN WHY. D;<
• I was sick - sick unto death with that long agony; and when they
at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my
senses were leaving me. The sentence - the dread sentence of
death - was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my
ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed
merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my
soul the idea of revolution - perhaps from its association in fancy
with the burr of a mill-wheel This only for a brief period; for
presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw; but with how
terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed
judges.
THINK FOR A MOMENT. FOOLS. GOOD? EVIL?
NEITHER? OPTIMISM OR PESSIMISM? WHY?
• AT A CERTAIN season of our life we are accustomed to consider
every spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed the
country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In
imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to
be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's
premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him,
took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my
mind; even put a higher price on it- took everything but a deed of ittook his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk- cultivated it, and
him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyed it
long enough, leaving him to carry it on.
HAVE THE GODS FORSAKEN YOU YET? HAVE
YOU BECOME ONE WITH
NATURE? HOW?
(MOTHER RUSSIA)
•
When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves in
the light of thought, we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty. Behind us,
as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. Not only things
familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their
place in the pictures of memory. The river-bank, the weed at the water-side, the
old house, the foolish person, — however neglected in the passing, — have a
grace in the past. Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added a
solemn ornament to the house. The soul will not know either deformity or pain. If,
in the hours of clear reason, we should speak the severest truth, we should say,
that we had never made a sacrifice. In these hours the mind seems so great, that
nothing can be taken from us that seems much. All loss, all pain, is particular;
the universe remains to the heart unhurt. Neither vexations nor calamities abate
our trust. No man ever stated his griefs as lightly as he might.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT NATURE HAS
DONE FOR US? CHERISH IT. LIVE IT.
•
“Shall we never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead
body.”
•
“In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life,
somebody is always at the drowning-point.”
•
“I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance
the instant one actually grapples with it.”
•
“It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or
even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts.”
•
“To plant a family! This idea is at the bottom of most of the wrong and mischief
which men do. The truth is, that, once in every half century, at longest, a family
should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about
its ancestors.”
THE END