Ralph Waldo Emerson Transcendentalism

1. Ralph Waldo EmersonTranscendentalism Hao Guilian, Ph.D. Yunnan Normal University Fall, 2009

2. Historical Background-1 • During the colonial and revolutionary periods American culture struggled for survival. During the early nineteenth century it struggled for individuality. By mid-century it was struggling for greatness. • A remarkable outburst of creativity marked this time, especially the years 1840 -1855. Two famous books about this time---American Renaissance and The Flowering of New England ---suggest in their titles the extraordinary quality of this period.

3. Historical Background-2 • A renaissance is a rebirth, a vital period in a culture, a ripeness that calls forth a concentration of great writers and artists. Such flowering periods took place in ancient Athens, in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy, and in Elizabethan England. The United States, by mid-nineteenth century, began to flower. It had achieved self-confidence, prosperity, and a settled and mature culture. American expansiveness and the assertion of individualism seemed to demand a great literature to celebrate and explain---and to criticize as well---the mysterious uniqueness of American life.

4. Transcendentalism-1 • The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought. The movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and God. The soul of each individual was thought to be identical with the world -- a microcosm of the world itself. The doctrine of self- reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God.

5. Transcendentalism-2 • The publication of Emerson's 1836 essay Natureis usually taken to be the watershed moment at which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. Emerson wrote in his essay "The American Scholar": "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."

6. Transcendentalism-3 • Transcendentalism was intimately connected with Concord, a small New England village 32 kilometers west of Boston. It was the first rural artist‘s colony, and the first place to offer a spiritual and cultural alternative to American materialism. It was a place of high-minded conversation and simple living, which attracted people like Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, the feminist writer Margaret Fuller and many others at various times.

7. Transcendentalism-4 • Unlike many European groups, the Transcendentalists never issued a manifesto, although they did publish a quarterly magazine, The Dial, which lasted four years and was first edited by Margaret Fuller and later by Emerson. They insisted on individual differences -- on the unique viewpoint of the individual. American Transcendental Romantics pushed radical individualism to the extreme.

8. Ralph Waldo Emerson • An American essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century. • Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. As a result of this ground breaking work he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence". When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was “the infinitude of the private man.”

9. As a lecturer and orator, Emerson—nicknamed the ConcordSage—became the leading voice of intellectual culture in the United States. Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine. His views, the basis of Transcendentalism, suggested that God does not have to reveal the truth but that the truth could be intuitively experienced directly from nature.

10. Self-Reliance • It contains the most solid statement of one of Emerson's repeating themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. Emerson's ideas are considered a reaction to a commercial identity; he calls for a return to individual identity. • Emerson presupposes that the mind is initially subject to an unhappy nonconformism. However, "Self-Reliance" is not anti-society or anti-community. Instead, Emerson advocates self-reliance as a starting point, not as a goal.

11. “Out of panic, self reliance,” by Harold Bloom on October, 2008, New York Times • By “self-reliance” Emerson meant the recognition of the god within us, rather than the worship of the Christian godhead (a deity that some Americans cannot always distinguish from themselves). Whether they know it or not, John McCain and Barack Obama seek power in just this ultimately serious sense, although that marvelous passage means one thing to Emersonians of the right and something very different to Emersonians of the left. Senator Obama’s mantra of “change” celebrates the shooting of the gulf, the darting to an aim, setting aside “the having lived.” Senator McCain’s “change” reflects what remains most authentic about him, the nostalgia of the Party of Memory.

12. “Out of panic, self reliance,” by Harold Bloom on October, 2008, New York Times • Barack Obama emanates from the tradition of the black church, where “the little me within the big me” is part or particle of God, just as the Emersonian self was. But he is a subtle intellectual and will not mistake himself for the Divine, and he has the curbing influence of Senator Joseph Biden, a conventional Roman Catholic, at his side. John McCain’s religiosity is at one with the Party of Memory, but he has aligned himself with Gov. Sarah Palin, who, as an Assemblies of God Pentecostalist, presumably enjoys closer encounters with the comforting Holy Spirit.

13. Regardless of these differences, whoever is elected will have to forge a solution to today’s panic through his own understanding of self-reliance. As Emerson knew in his glory and sorrow, both of himself and all Americans: “The wealth of the universe is for me. Every thing is explicable and practical for me .... I am defeated all the time; yet to victory I am born.”

14. Study Questions • Textbook: p.24 • Emerson's central premise is that all individuals have the potential to be great, if only they would trust themselves. Do you agree or disagree?