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American Renaissance. Romantic movement is fully realized Poets and writers discover “true” American voice; original & separate from European influences. American Renaissance Transcendentalism. ROMANTICISM 1800 – 1860 . Intuition Inspiration from Nature Imagination Inner Experience
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American Renaissance • Romantic movement is fully realized • Poets and writers discover “true” American voice; original & separate from European influences
American Renaissance Transcendentalism ROMANTICISM 1800 – 1860 Intuition Inspiration from Nature Imagination Inner Experience Innocence All 5 I’s of Romanticism are related to the importance of the individual TRANSCENDENTALISM 1840 - 1860 • Romanticism to the extreme • Emphasis on intuition (inner sense)
Transcendentalism • Nurtured by intellectual and social growth in New England • Believed in human perfectibility and worked toward utopia • Believed everything reflects Divine Soul (kind of like God, but not necessarily the Puritan god…more like nirvana) • Intuition is key to truth…nature is important as a way to get in touch with intuition
Transcendental Thought Paraphrase each ideal. • Nonconformity • Self-reliance • Free thought • Confidence • Importance of nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson • Led Transcendentalism • Ideal state of being is to “transcend” or rise above earthly concerns • To achieve this goal, individual must seek spiritual, not material, greatness and the essential truths of life through intuition
5-Minute Discussion Share your thoughts with a neighbor. • How are you affected by nature? Do you find comfort in it? Do you reflect the moods of nature? • What does it mean to know something intuitively? For example, has a parent or a sibling ever known something was wrong with you without having talked with or seen you? What do we mean when we say "I just know it"? • How do you demonstrate that you are an individual? Do you think independently of others or do you follow the crowd?
“Self-Reliance” (225)Ralph Waldo Emerson • Paragraph 1: • What does Emerson mean when he says, “envy is ignorance” and “imitation is suicide”? • What does he say about “power” and “work”? • Paraphrase this sentence: “The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray.”
“Self-Reliance” (225)Ralph Waldo Emerson • Paragraph 2: • How is trust a part of being self-reliant? • Emerson instructs us to “accept the place the divine Providence has found” for us. Do you agree? Why or why not? • How is acceptance different than complacence?
“Self-Reliance” (225)Ralph Waldo Emerson • Paragraph 3: • Why does Emerson see society as the enemy of individuality? • What is the role of nonconformity? What does that word mean to Emerson?
“Self-Reliance” (225)Ralph Waldo Emerson • Paragraph 4: • What makes a man (in Emerson’s view)? • Connect this quote to something we’ve read previously: “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
“Self-Reliance” (225)Ralph Waldo Emerson • Paragraph 5: • What is a hobgoblin? • What is a “foolish consistency”? • How does it get in the way of genius?
“Self-Reliance” (225)Ralph Waldo Emerson Working in groups, identify 1 example for at least 3 types of Transcendental thought and record on your chart.
“Self-Reliance” (225)Ralph Waldo Emerson Working in groups, identify 1 example for at least 3 types of Transcendental thought and record on your chart.
The search for identity is a common thread in American literature. It is expressed in through three typical topics: Themes of American Literature