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The American Renaissance

“Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.”- Emerson. The American Renaissance. Transcedentalism / Anti-Transcendentalism and the American Thinkers of the 19 th Century.

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The American Renaissance

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  1. “Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.”- Emerson The American Renaissance Transcedentalism/ Anti-Transcendentalism and the American Thinkers of the 19th Century

  2. Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Walk Whitman Herman Melville Nathaniel Hawthorne Louisa May Alcott Emily Dickinson

  3. Ralph Waldo Emerson Born 1803- Father was an Unit- arianminister(six generations in) Emerson was educated at Harvard to be a minister, but didn’t feel comfortable in the religious tradition he was born into. In June, 1832- He resigned, went to Europe and studied new ideas. One year later he came back and changed America with his newly created ideas.

  4. The Difference Between “Reason and Understanding” John Locke had asserted that everything in the world can be determined through our five senses. The idea that there is “Nothing in the intellect that was not previously in the experience of the senses.” (materialism) Plato, in the fourth century, said that true reality involved ideas rather than the world as perceived by the senses. Idealists sought the permanent reality that underlay physical appearances.

  5. Transcendentalism • Emerson borrowed from the ideas of Immanuel Kant when he said that there are ideas that do not come by experience, but experience is acquired through these ideas. There are intuitions of the mind itself… And these are “transcendental.”

  6. This can be seen in Nature • If a man looks at the world with his Understanding only, he will believe in the absolute existence of nature where objects in the physical world are the ultimate reality. • However, if man looks at the world with his Reason, he will see Nature with a higher understanding. He will look at the source and cause of nature. Reason --- Ideas, Spirit Understanding- Objects, Matter

  7. There are TWO realities • Reason is the highest faculty of the soul and is “potentially perfect in every man”. Reason gives man access to the realism of innate ideas: intuitions of religious, poetic and symbolic truth. • Imagination may be defined that which Reason makes of the material world. When we see beyond the material- we see into the soul, into the Divine, into the ideal.

  8. Emanation • The Materialist views Nature as rooted and fast, absolute in its existence, distrusts any other way of seeing or any other source of Knowledge; the poet defies this. • Emerson sees Nature as “unfolding itself”. It reveals the nature of the Divine. However, nature itself is not divine. Divinity is a spiritual existence residing inside of every living thing. It emanates through the material.

  9. Puritanism Vs. Transcendentalism • Puritanism said that God is good and man is evil. God came to redeem man from his evil nature through the person of Jesus Christ, God-Himself. God created the world; man can see God’s Hand in nature. Material is good because God made it. • Transcendentalism says God is good and material is absence of good (evil). God is in us through our souls. God is in everything. We are all connected through one large Over-Soul. The Over-Soul is good. We connect through the Oversoul through intuition.

  10. What is so appealing about Transcendentalism? • It is optimistic. Things will get better. We can start anew. There is goodness inside of me. • It feels patriotic. It breeds independence. I don’t need society. I can perfect MYSELF. Every man is God- not just the elect that God chooses. I am empowered. We can build a new nation together. • It is universal. Salvation is now open to any man who recognizes the power of the Over-Soul. • The voice of God is the intuition of the heart. It is in our power, not in God’s grace. This voice of God leads to moral perfection and positive societal progress.

  11. Henry David Thoreau • Born 1817, went to Harvard in 1833 and grad- uated in 1837. He studied German philosphy and English literature. He was heavily influenced by Emerson’s essay“Nature”, and wanted to learn about life through nature. By age 28 he looked like a bona fide LOSER.He had lost his job (for refusing to whip), been turned down by his girlfriend in a marriage proposal, and could get nothing going professionally (he wanted to be on the lecture circuit). It looked like he was going to nothing but help his dad make pencils all of his life.

  12. Walden • He decides to give it all up and go to the woods “to live deliberately.”

  13. Emerson let him live on his land.

  14. “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.” • Cost of Materials for Thoreau's House (from Walden) • Board's: $8.03 1/2, mostly shanty boardsRefuse • shingles for roof and sides:$4.00 • Laths: $1.25 • Two second-hand windows with glass: $2.4 • 3One thousand old brick: $4.00 • Two casts of lime: $2.40. • That was high.Hair: $0.31. More than I needed • Mantle-tree iron: $0.15 • Nails: $3.90 • Hinges and screws: $0.14 • Latch: $0.10 • Chalk: $0.01 • Transportation: $1.40. I carried a good part on my back • .In all: $28.12 ½ • These are all the material excepting the timber, stones and sand, which I claimed by squatter's right.

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