Transcript UNIT IV: TRANSCENDENTALISM

UNIT IV:
TRANSCENDENTALISM
America’s First Identity Crisis
1840 - 1870
How it Fits
Romanticism 1800-1840
Literary
Nationalism
Transcendentalism
Realism
1840-1870
1870-1900
Literary Nationalism (1800 - 1840)
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Established national identity
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Heroes (e.g., Natty Bumpo)
Anti-heroes (e.g., Tom Walker)
Local color (regional dialect, setting)
National identity rooted in:
1.
2.
3.
B. Franklin’s Virtues and the American
Dream
Puritanism – Work Ethic and City Upon a
Hill
Democracy
Literary Nationalism (1800 - 1840)
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Influenced by European Romanticism
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Truth in absolutes
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Morality, thus, is absolute
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Heroes = Idealized; impossibly perfect;
extraordinary people in extraordinary situations
Anti-Heroes/Enemies = pure evil
All good or all evil; no gray area
Emphasis
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Extraordinary people in extraordinary situations
Often stresses the past
Glorifies nature – its appearance and grandeur
Literary Nationalism (1800 - 1840)
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1800 - 1840 : America’s obedient schoolboy
years
Historical Context
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Nothing seemed to deter America’s growth in the
nineteenth century.
Geographically – America was pushing frontiers
to the Pacific
Politically – it was finding its identity as a
democratic government divided into three
branches
Socially – it was in a fervent state of
development, constantly creating and developing
new communities with its ever-expanding
boundaries.
Historical Context, cont. …
Such growth and advancement imbued
Americans with a collective sense of
optimism and belief in progress.
 Americans knew they had a special place
in history
 That feeling pervaded everything they
thought, did, or believed.
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Historical Context
Policies adopted in this period placed
emphasis on energy, enterprise and
personal achievement.
 Laissez-faire (“leave it alone”) capitalism
reigned. (recall reference to speculation in
Tom Walker – unregulated trade).
America as a giant workshop.
 Emphasis on business, growing personal
wealth and getting ahead became the
underpinning for what most American
believed was the ideal democratic society.
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Historical Context, cont…
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Cities grew in size
Populations scattered and the number of states
increased
Growth and expansion gave the nation a firm
belief in it’s own progress
Political climate that elevated self-made men like
Andrew Jackson instilled the populace with faith
in the power of the individual to rise above his or
her own circumstances and fashion his or her
own place in the world.
Gave a collective sense of rising above, both on a
cultural and individual level, created fertile
ground for an optimistic, if not idealistic,
American philosophy to take hold
In the 1840’s, America
enters its teenage years…
…and the country experiences
its first identity crisis!
But
Begins to define a clear “American”
voice
Enter the Transcendentalists!
(America’s “adolescence”)
America’s Identity Crisis
TRANSCENDENTALISM: Origins
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Major national issues
came together causing
America’s “identity
crisis”:
1.
2.
Slavery
Westward expansion
America = half free
states / half slave
Q: Would new states be
slave or free?
Exacerbating the issue:
Mexican War 1846-1848
–would new territory
also be free or a slave
territory?
Forerunners
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Puritanism
 belief in God as a
powerful force
 belief that each
individual can
experience God firsthand
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Colonialism
 Self-empowerment
 Equality
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Romanticism
 placed central
importance on emotions
and the individual
 emphasized intuition
and inner perception of
truth that differs from
reason
 emphasized nature’s
beauty, strangeness,
and mystery
 emphasized individual
expression and artistic
freedom
TRANSCENDENTALISM: Origins
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Transcendentalism was a literary
movement that flourished during
the middle 19th Century (1836 –
1860).
It began as a rebellion against
traditionally held beliefs by the
Church that God superseded the
individual.
1840-50: movement of
writers began to seriously
challenge American values
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Transcendentalism: Origins
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Group focuses on reform
Ties with Unitarian Church
(rejection of Trinity) though not a
religion.
Centered around Boston and
Concord, MA. in the mid-1800’s
(a group of intellectuals and
academics)
Still influenced by European ideas
and Eastern philosophies
Departure from ROMANTICISM
(focus on the extraordinary,
uncommon, intangible)
Embracing of REALISM (focus on
the ordinary, common, tangible)
Transcendental Beliefs: Beliefs
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 selfknowledge. This is similar
to Aristotle's dictum "know
thyself."
Transcendental Beliefs: Beliefs
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 selfrealization—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.
So….
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Nature
Individualism
Moral Enthusiasm
Feelings
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Rejection
of society’s
beliefs and free of
Is
Divine
Considered
theover
“Conscience
 INTUITION
LOGIC
thought
Holds
the
Nation”
the truths of life
An
places inner truth
above
 individual
The transcendental
reality
can
Holds
transcendence
for
man
Challenged
individuals
to
all else
be known not by the rational
when
he can
communicate
“question
authority”
Fulfillment
frombut
knowing
facultycomes
or
logic,
only by
and
be
one
with
nature
oneself,
not
from
materialism
intuition or
mystical and not
Encouraged
non-conformity
through
adhering and
to institutions
like
Is innocence
an escape
insight
education,
the
government,
the
morality
>
legality
fromthe
evils
of
society
Oversoul:
a divine spirit
church, even
the family.
AntiAristocracy
Transcendentalists
believed
that
the
Advocates
selfpervades
trust and confidence
individuals
could
universe
Anti-Slavery
(truth
is within
us) andtranscend to
a
higher
of
existence
encompasses
all
human in
Experience
isbeing
valued
over
scholarship.
Pro-Women’s
Rights
nature.
souls in(coined
God
is located
the soulby
of R.W.
each
Quest
for
Utopia
(Brook
Farm)
Emerson,
author)
individual.
Finding
own
Belief that
theone’s
transcendent
spirituality
will lead
one
to truth
(or
spiritual)
reality,
rather
 All
people
are
open
to
this
Simple
life
(manual
labor)
than
the knowledge;
material world, is the
higher
This
truth ofreality
existence combines
ultimate
 Great optimism
and faith in
nature, the universe and man
men
(oversoul) and is available to everyone
 Limitless potential of man
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mind/spirit > body/society
Wrong is the New Right
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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.” – Henry David Thoreau
The Founder of Transcendentalism:
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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1803-1882
Unitarian minister
Poet and essayist
Founded the Transcendental Club
Popular lecturer
Banned from Harvard for 40 years
following his Divinity School address
in 1835 and writes his first important
work Nature which describes how
humans find God within nature:
“In the woods is perpetual youth… In
the woods we return to reason and
faith.”
Emerson went on to become a famous
lecturer sharing his transcendental
philosophy throughout the country.
Among his quotable phrases:
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to
that iron string.”
“To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Henry David Thoreau - Practitioner
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If Ralph Waldo Emerson was
the philosopher of
Transcendentalism, Thoreau
was its most devoted
practitioner.
While Emerson wrote and
lectured about
Transcendentalism, Thoreau
tried to live as a
transcendentalist.
grew up in a middle class
family with a significant
amount of wealth.
Also attended Harvard and
graduated in 1837.
A school teacher
Worked in the family’s pencil
factory
Thoreau - Practitioner
As an independent thinker, Thoreau
became the head of the Concord
Lyceum organizing lectures where he
met Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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Thoreau eventually worked as a
handyman and caretaker of Emerson’s
estate while Emerson spent long stints
studying abroad in Europe.
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From 1841 – 1843 Thoreau decided to
conduct an experiment of selfsufficiency by building his own house
on the shores of Walden Pond and
living off the food he grew on his farm.
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Thoreau later documented his
experiment in his famous memoir
Walden.
Famous quotes from Walden:
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“I went to the woods to live
intentionally, to suck the marrow out
of life.”
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Romanticism
REALISM
Civil War to turn of the century
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Realism: Style of writing, usually
prose, in which surface
appearance is presented in an
unembellished way.
In contrast to romance or the
fantastic, the realist writer also
seeks to represent experiences
that are usual or typical rather
than extraordinary or exotic.
Captures ordinary people in
everyday experiences and
settings with almost photographic
precision and detail
Represents the common through
common language
Attack upon Romanticism and
Romantic writers.
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"Where romanticists
transcend the immediate
to find the ideal, and
naturalists plumb the
actual or superficial to find
the scientific laws that
control its actions, realists
center their attention to a
remarkable degree on the
immediate, the here and
now, the specific action,
and the verifiable
consequence"
Transcendentalist Writers – 1850-1870
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Poet, Essayist,
Lecturer
Henry David Thoreau
Essayist,
Walden
Civil Disobedience
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Writer
The Scarlet Letter
House of the Seven
Gables
Herman Melville
Author Poet
Moby Dick
The Confidence
Realism in Literature
Mark Twain
Stephen Crane
Theodore Dreiser
Edith Wharton