American Literary Periods

1. American Literary Periods Transcendentalism

2. Transcendentalism • "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.” • Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Definition: Transcendentalism is “a literary and philosophical movement…asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that [goes beyond] the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition.” Transcendentalists “advocated reforms in church, state, and society, contributing to the rise of free religion and the abolition movement and to the formation of various utopian communities” (i.e., Brook Farm, Fruitlands).

4. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Context: At this time, the pendulum was swinging from the hyper-rational intellectualism of the Enlightenment, with its conclusions about the world based on experimentation and logical thinking, to a more Romantic philosophy—less rational, more intuitive, more in touch with the senses.

5. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Transcendentalists were… • Well-educated • Free-thinking • Most New Englanders (esp. from the Boston area)

6. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Philosophical Beliefs • Divine truth can be known intuitively • God, man, and nature are all connected • People and nature are innately good/benevolent • Intuition, sensation, passion, and experience should take precedence over pure rationality and logic • Mainstream religion too “rational” (Emerson called the previous generation of rational religion “corpse-cold”)

7. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Philosophical Beliefs, cont. • Truth can be found in all religions • Combined ideas of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim religions / believed a loving God would not lead most of humanity astray • Respected Jesus, but did not believe in the “miracle” stories of the Bible in a literal sense • At the level of the human soul, all people had access to divine inspiration and sought and loved freedom and knowledge and truth

8. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Political Beliefs • Laws should be disobeyed if moral intuition holds them to be unjust (Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience”) • Inspiration is blunted by social conformity, which therefore must be resisted (Emerson, “Self-Reliance”) • Existing social arrangements prevent individual spiritual development • “Oppressive” economic structures should be changed

9. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Political Beliefs, cont. • Women should have social status and opportunities equal to men’s • Slavery should be abolished • The natural world should be treated respectfully, as it sustains all life • Thoreau is seen as a forerunner of the modern environmental movement

10. Transcendentalism (1840-1855) • Influences • Christian Unitarianism (an anti-Calvinist, anti-Trinitarian offshoot of Puritanism) • More liberal than Puritanism • Transcendentalists thought Unitarianism was much better than Puritanism, but still placed too much emphasis on the “rational” • German and British Romanticism • Immanuel Kant / German philosopher • Attempted to unite reason with experience (Critique of Pure Reason)

11. Transcendentalism in Literature • Transcendentalist writers wanted to create a uniquely American body of literature, literature that would set Americans apart from England and the rest of Europe.

12. Transcendentalist Authors • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Henry David Thoreau • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Emily Dickinson • Louisa May Alcott • Walt Whitman • John Greenleaf Whittier

13. Other Famous Transcendentalists • Margaret Fuller (journalist, women’s rights advocate) • Bronson Alcott (educational reformer) • Frederick Douglass (social reformer, leader of the Abolitionist movement) • Julia Ward Howe (Abolitionist, social activist, poet—wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic”) • Oliver Wendell Holmes (jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court)

14. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) • Did not agree with Puritanism, but did not completely agree with the Transcendentalists, either • Attracted to free inquiry of Transcendentalism, but not to its mysticism • A skeptic, not a romantic • Hawthorne is “an investigator of moral ideas”—his stories begin with a moral idea into which he then incorporates plot and characters • A “dark romantic” writer (a combination of Gothic and Romantic traditions) • Sin, guilt, and evil are inherent qualities of human nature

15. References • http://www.transcendentalists.com/what.htm • American Heritage Dictionary • Britannica Concise Encyclopedia • Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms • Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History