Transcript The Transcendentalists

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Emerson: 1803-1882
 Appealed to intellectuals and public
 Thousands of lectures
 Essayist / poet / philosopher
Beginnings
 Eighth-generation Unitarian minister
developed disbelief re: central doctrines of his
religion
resigned from ministry, went to Europe
met English Romantics
-William Wordsworth
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Emerson’s Lectures
-Demanded that American scholars free
themselves from the shackles of the past
 -called for rejection of institutional religion in
favor of a personal relation with God
 Banned from Harvard for 3 decades (for
“denying the divinity of Jesus”)
Emerson as Guru
 Concord became a destination for truth-seeking
young people who saw Emerson as their guru
 The young responded to his predictions that
they were on the verge of a new age
 Intellectuals responded to his philosophical
ideas about the relations among humanity,
nature, and God
 Society as a whole responded to his optimism
Emerson’s Later Years
 The death of son Waldo caused
Emerson to go into an “emotional
shell”
 In his later years suffered from memory
loss and mostly stopped lecturing
Henry David Thoreau
 1817-1862
 Born in Concord, MA
 Nonconformist at Harvard


Attended chapel in green because “the rules
required black”
Studied English lit and German philosophers
(underpinnings of Transcendentalism)
The “Underachiever”
 Was fired after 2 weeks as a schoolteacher because he
refused to whip the children
 Marriage proposal was turned down
 Had little interest in the family business
 Had an impressive education but had not realized
literary ambitions
Walden Pond
 At age 28, went to live alone in nature at Walden
Pond
 “I went to the woods because I wanted to live
deliberately”
 Part journal, part philosophy
 Thoreau contemplates himself, his
environment, and the state of humankind
Walden Pond Continued
 “The mass of men . . . Lead lives of quiet
desperation.”
 -Uses nature, rather than the stylists of the
past, as a model
 A style that imitated nature would speak
fundamental spiritual truths
Civil Disobedience
 Refused to pay poll tax to protest the Mexican War
 Many believed war was attempt to extend
American slaveholding territory
 Spent one night in jail (it was a matter of
principle)
 Angry upon his release when he found out
that his aunt had paid the tax.
The Impact of Civil Disobedience
 Thoreau’s account of this act and other
essays had a profound influence on
practitioners of passive resistance, such as:
 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 Mohandas K. Gandhi
A Man Dying With Pleasure and
Peace
 Moved back to his parents’ home after living at
Walden Pond
 Made pencils (family business)
 Odd jobs (excellent carpenter, mason, and
gardener),
 Died from tuberculosis
 Town constable Sam Staples is said to have
told Emerson that he had “never seen a man
dying with so much pleasure and peace.”