TRANSCENDENTALISM

1. TRANSCENDENTALISM Can you pronounce it? Can you spell it?

2. TRANSCENDENTALISM 1835-1860

3. What is TRANSCENDENTALISM? It is a belief in a higher kind of knowledge than can be achieved by human reason

4. TRANSCENDENTALISM • In philosophy and literature, belief in a higher reality than that found in sense experience or • belief in a higher kind of knowledge than that achieved by human reason

5. Stress on individualism and self-reliance Transcendentalism“Trust thyself” Belief that people, nature, and God are interconnected Belief that intuition can lead to knowledge Faith in the inherent goodness of people Celebration of emotions and the imagination

6. Transcendentalism was: • an intellectual movement that emphasized the dignity of the individual and advocated a simple, mindful life. • The transcendentalists wanted to transcend – or go beyond – the limitations of the senses and everyday experience. • Transcendentalists believed in disregarding external authority in favor of one’s own experience and intuition.

7. BELIEFS OF TRANSCENDENTALISTS • “transcendent forms” of truth exist beyond reason and experience; every individual is capable of discovering this truth on his or her own, through intuition • people are inherently good and should follow their own beliefs, however controversial they may be • special emphasis on communing with uncorrupted nature

8. TRANSCENDENTALISTS BELIEVED • God gave humankind the gift of intuition, • the gift of insight, • the gift of inspiration. Why waste such a gift?

9. TRANSCENDENTALISM • Began in Germany • Immanuel Kant, philosopher • 1700’s • Developed in United States in 1836 • Transcendental Club • Boston • 1836 • led by Ralph Waldo Emerson

10. RALPH WALDO EMERSON • author • essayist • lecturer • Philosopher • Unitarian • The publication of Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1836 essay Nature is usually considered the watershed moment at which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement.

11. TRANSCENDENTALISM Emerson and the Transcendentalists led the search for truth • in nature • through self-reliance • “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” • Ralph Waldo Emerson

12. Words of Ralph Waldo Emerson • "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; Divine Soul which also inspires all men." • “So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.”

13. ROOTS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM • Puritanism • belief in God as a powerful force • belief that each individual can experience God first-hand

14. ROOTS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM • Romanticism • placed central importance on emotions and the individual • emphasized intuition and inner perception of truth that differs from reason • emphasized nature’s beauty, strangeness, and mystery • emphasized individual expression and artistic freedom

15. TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS • OVERSOUL: • man, universe, and nature are intertwined man universe nature

16. TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS • RELATIONSHIP: • all has its place

17. TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS • OPTIMISTIC: • all is good evil is an illusion

18. TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS • INDIVIDUALISM: • be true to one’s own inner perception or intuition “If I know it is truth, then it is truth.”

19. TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS • UNLIMITED POTENTIAL OF EACH INDIVIDUAL • set high goals to improve

20. TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS • NATURE IS TRUTH • it can be a guide to higher understanding • Nature symbolizes God • or the inner life of human beings

21. HENRY DAVID THOREAU • Lived the philosophy of Transcendentalism that Emerson espoused • Spent 26 months at Walden Pond to “live deliberately - to front only the essential facts of life . . .”

22. TRANSCENDENTALISM • Transcendentalism began with a few and grew. • This philosophy lasted for several years in New England • It ended as the Civil War began.

23. CRITICS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM • Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a novel, The Blithedale Romance (1852), satirizing the movement, and based it on his experiences at Brook Farm, a short-lived utopian community founded on transcendental principles.

24. TRANSCENDENTALISM BEGINS • Transcendentalism started in the study of an old minister’s house located by a slow moving river in a town just nineteen miles outside of Boston. It was there, in 1836, a young Ralph Waldo Emerson, living in his grandfather’s house, wrote the book that became the foundation of Transcendentalism, Nature.

25. In Nature, Emerson is clear about the benefits of leaving both the actual rooms in which we live and our set ways of thinking, and striding out into nature: • “In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- a mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

26. However… • Edgar Allan Poe did NOT agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Transcendentalist ideology. “You ignoramus Transcendentalists! You’re just a bunch of frogpondians!” “Oh really? Well, your work is morally deprived! That’s right. Nothing you write has a shred of moral value!”

27. CRITICS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM • Edgar Allan Poe had a deep dislike for transcendentalism, calling its followers "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common. Boston Commons is considered the first public park.

28. CRITICISM CONT. • Poe ridiculed the transcendentalists’ writings by calling them "metaphor-run," lapsing into "mysticism for mysticism's sake.“ • One of his short stories, "Never Bet the Devil Your Head", is a clear attack on transcendentalism, in which the narrator calls it a "disease." • The story specifically mentions the movement and its flagship journal The Dial, though Poe denied that he had any specific targets.