American Transcendentalism

1. American Transcendentalism

2. Romanticism in America • Center in Concord, Mass.—like an artists’ colony • “Transcendentalist Club” 1836—writing, reading, reform projects • Utopian communities—groups to escape American materialism

3. Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott Homes Concord, Mass., 1850s

4. Rose out of Two Key Intellectual and Spiritual Traditions: • European Romanticism • American Unitarianism • Truth through empirical study and rationality • Transcendentalists add romanticized mysticism—humankind capable of direct experience of the holy (Laurence Buell) Image: Second Church of Boston, where Emerson held first ministerial position

5. Roots in American Unitarianism • Unitarianism rises in late 1700s; formalized by William Ellery Channing, early 1800s • Liberal church—broken from strict New England Congregationalism • Rejects total depravity of humanity • Believes in perfectibility of humanity • Rejects idea of “angry God”—focus on benevolent God

6. American Transcendentalism • A spiritual, philosophical, and literary movement • Belief that humans can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses and of logic to a plane of “higher truths” • Value spirituality (direct access to benevolent God, not organized religion or ritual), divinity of humanity, nature, intellectual pursuits, social justice

7. Transcendentalism Rooted in the American Past • To Puritanism: pervasive morality and the "doctrine of divine light" • To the Quaker: "inner light" • In Unitarianism: the individual as the true source of moral light • To Romanticism: the concept of nature as a living mystery and not a clockwork universe that is fixed and permanent

8. Spiritual Revival Transcendentalism is “a pilgrimage from the idolatrous world of creeds and rituals to the temple of the Living God in the soul. It [is] a putting to silence of tradition and formulas, that the Sacred Oracle might be heard through intuitions of the singled-eyed and pure-hearted.” (William Henry Channing)

9. Basic Premise #1 • Individual the spiritual center of the universe • Individual the clue to nature, history and the cosmos itself • Not a rejection of the existence of God • Explains the world in terms of an individual.

10. Basic Premise #2 • Structure of the universe duplicates the structure of the individual self • All knowledge begins with self-knowledge. • Similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."

11. Basic Premise #3 • Nature a living mystery, full of signs • Nature is symbolic.

12. Basic Premise #4 • Individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization which • Depends upon the reconciliation of two universal and opposing psychological tendencies: • The expansive or self-transcending tendency: the desire to embrace the whole world—to know and become one with the world • The contracting or self-asserting tendency: the desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate—an egotistical existence.

13. A Radical Movement • Transcendentalists departed radically from their rationalist predecessors in their approach to the nature of knowledge and human understanding. • Encompasses a range of beliefs whose specific principles depend on the individual writer or thinker. • Easier to recognize than explain. • Real truths, the most fundamental truths, lie outside the experience of the senses.

14. Principles of Transcendentalism • We transcend by learning from and living in harmony with nature. • We transcend as individuals or rise above the lower animalistic impulses of life (animal drives) and move from the rational to a spiritual realm. • Everyone is capable of transcending. • Personal intuition, not reason, needed to reach absolute goodness or Absolute Truth.

15. Reform • To transcend is to rise above or go beyond the limits of something, especially society. • American transcendentalism urged a reform in society and that such a reform may be reached if individuals resist customs and social codes and rely on intuition to learn what is right. • The essential nature of human beings is good. • Left in a state of nature, human beings would seek the good. • Society is to blame for the corruption that mankind endures. • Social reform must not be emphasized. • True reform comes from within.

16. Truth • Consistency is foolish because what we believe tomorrow may be different from what we believe today. • The unity of life and universe must be realized, a relationship between all things. • One must have faith in intuition, for no church or creed can communicate truth.

17. The Over-Soul • Intuitive faculty the means for a conscious union of the individual psyche with the world psyche • World Psyche also known as the Over-Soul, life-force, prime mover and God. • Death is never to be feared, for at death the soul merely passes to the Over-Soul. • The human soul is part of the Over-Soul. • Every individual is to be respected because everyone has a portion of that Over-Soul (God).

18. The Over-Soul, continued • The real truth resides in the “Over-Soul” a universal and benign omnipresence. • Since the Over-Soul or Life Force or God can be found everywhere, travel to holy places is not necessary • More important than a concern about the afterlife, should be a concern for this life. Emerson said, “the one thing in the world of value is the active soul.”

19. Correspondence • External united with the internal • Physical or material nature neutral, indifferent, or objective • Attributes given to nature dependent upon individual's temperament, mood, or psyche • “Knowing yourself" and "studying nature" the same activity. • Nature mirrors our psyche.

20. Sources • Bickman, Martin. “Transcendental Ideas: Definitions.” U. of Colorado. 2003. December 1, 2004. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/ transcendentalism/ideas/ • “Early American Romanticism.” About.com http://classiclit.about.com • “Emerson, Ralph Waldo.” Hart and Leininger. 197-98. • “Fuller, Margaret.” Hart and Leininger. 234. • Hart, James D. and Phillip W. Leininger, eds. Oxford Companion to American Literature. 6E. New York: OUP, 1995. • Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 3: Early Nineteenth Century: Romanticism - An Introduction " PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap3/3intro.html 15 July 2005 3 Dec. 2006 • “Thoreau, Henry David.” Hart and Leininger. 662-63. • “Transcendentalism.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 1 Dec. 2004 <http://school.eb.com/eb/>. • Weinstein, Arnold. “Emerson Today: Architect of American Values.” Classics of American Literature. The Teaching Company Part I, 1998. • Weinstein, Arnold. “Ralph Waldo Emerson Yesterday: America’s Coming of Age.” Classics of American Literature. The Teaching Company Part I, 1998. • Woodlief, Ann. “Points and Questions to Consider As You Read ‘Self-Reliance’.” Virginia Commonwealth U. 2003. 4 Dec. 2004. http://www.vcu.edu/ engweb/ eng372/ • 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