A Growing Nation Part II

1. A Growing Nation Part II New England Renaissance And Transcendentalism

2. New England Renaissance • 1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered “The American Scholar” calling for American intellectual independence from Europe • Emerson challenged American writers to interpret their own culture in new ways • A burst of intellectual activity called “The flowering of New England” brought forth an array of great writers and literature

3. Transcendentalism • Most New England writers of this time were influenced by the Transcendental movement • Major Players: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau • This movement arose from liberal thinkers who departed from Calvanism • It became a literary, philosophical, and political movement

4. Yeah, but what is it? • Transcendentalism is difficult to define because it has many facets, sources, and encompasses a range of beliefs and principles that relied on the individual writer or thinker • American Transcendentalists drew on a variety of thinkers and philosophers to mold their movement such as German philosopher Immanuel Kant, Plato, French mathematician Pascal, Swedish scientist Swedenborg, and Buddhism ideals

5. Say what? • Transcendentalism produced a native blend that was romantic, intuitive, and mystical • For them the point was the “real truths” the fundamental truths lie outside the experience of the senses and resided in the “Over soul” or universal soul • Transcendentalists had a reverence for nature and out connection to it

6. Basic Principle # 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.

7. Basic Principle # 2 • The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self - all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."

8. Basic Principle # 3 and # 4 • Transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is symbolic. • The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization

9. Walden • Thoreau withdrew from society to live by himself near Walden Pond • He felt intensely the Transcendentalists reverence for nature • The 18 essays in Walden are on topics ranging from a battle of red vs black ants to the individual’s relation to society • His observations of nature reveal his philosophy of individualism, simplicity, and passive resistance to justice

10. Fireside Poets • William Cullen Bryant • Oliver Wendell Homes • James Russell Lowell • John Greenleaf Whittier • These men represented America’s coming of age and are acclaimed as the first generation of American poets