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Emerson and Transcendentalism

Emerson and Transcendentalism. Asher Durand, “Kindred Spirits” (1849). Thomas Cole (ca. 1833). Transcendentalism. The American Renaissance (1836-46) a. Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley b. American romanticism c. Abolitionism and utopian communities

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Emerson and Transcendentalism

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  1. Emerson and Transcendentalism

  2. Asher Durand, “Kindred Spirits” (1849)

  3. Thomas Cole (ca. 1833)

  4. Transcendentalism • The American Renaissance (1836-46) a. Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley b. American romanticism c. Abolitionism and utopian communities d. “saturnalia of faith” (Emerson 1) rejection of “corpse cold” Unitarianism e. “a retrospective age” 1) “builds sepulchres of the fathers” 1707 2) “why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe”? f. “Nature” as manifesto for g. cultural birth of a nation

  5. Immanual Kant Transcendental ideas: “I call knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with the mode of knowing objects…a priori.” (Critique of Pure Reason) e.g. ideas beyond experience, sensation, perception role of a priori categories (space, time) that organize senses

  6. Puritan Origins • representative character of Elect a. all are equal within Covenant • self-reliance & inner scrutiny • interpretation of life for signs of grace • Antinomianism a. divine influx of Grace • Transcendentalism ,differences from • God created but not identical to Nature • no direct access to divinity • God must be other than creation

  7. LockeanAssociationism John Locke (1632-1704) a. British philosopher, “empiricism” 1) “associationism” b. mind as passive vehicle 1) a “tabula rasa” 2) imprinted with knowledge via senses c. spiritual matters known only via senses d. intuition tells us nothing 1) only experience

  8. Transcendentalist Response to Locke • divinity of man a. “How does Nature deify us…” 1712 b. consciousness provides access to God c. mind able to grow & generate ideas 2. child’s imagination superior to rational thought 3. spiritual truths available via “vegetable affinities” 4. sense experience not only source of validity • intuition, innate ideas, consciousness

  9. Emerson’s system, 1708 1. God/Over-Soul 2. Universe a. Nature (all that is Not-Me) b. Soul (the essential me) 1) mind, consciousness 3. Access to Over-Soul via a. Understanding (rational powers) 1) sense perception, logic, common sense 2) defined: "penny wisdom" b. Reason (intuitive powers) 1723 1) perception of affinities w/God

  10. “Nature” (1836) RWE’s 1stbook Primary problem a. how to reconcile visible world & Soul (mind) Adamicrecovery of divine origins a. “Man is a God in ruins” 1731 a. e.g. once enjoyed original relation to universe To what end is nature? 1708 • “Every man’s condition is hieroglyph to those inquiries he would put” (1707) • how to reconcile visible world & Soul • how to establish point of view in world of flux • how to be both circle & circumference

  11. Albert Bierstadt, “Yosemite” 1868

  12. The Transparent Eyeball (1709) 1. Lockean vision a. eye as passive lens onto world b. “receptor” of sensations 2. metaphor of eye in Emerson a. condition of fallen man b. no longer one with God c. sees only surfaces d. sees oneself separate from nature 3. need to go into nature a. “I feel the currents of Universal Being circulate through me. I am part or particle of God” 4. “occult relation between man and vegetable”

  13. Four Uses of Nature 1. Commodity (1710) a. advantages senses owe to nature b. Nature as product & process 2. Beauty (1711) a. pleasure arising from outline, color, motion b. “the eye is the best of artists” 1) integrates mass of objects into coherent whole 3. Language (1714) a. nature as vehicle of thought, expression b. World as book of God c. nature as hieroglyph: “every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact” d. words = signs of natural facts e. facts = symbols of spiritual facts f. Nature = symbol of spirit 4. Discipline (1718) a. nature as curriculum or pedagogy b. we learn intellectual matters from c. remarks on debt 1719

  14. The “blank” in nature “The problem of restoring to the world original and eternal beauty, is solved by the redemption of the soul. The ruin or the blank, that we see when we look at nature, is in our own eye. The axis of vision is not coincident with the axis of things, and so they appear not transparent but opaque. The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is because man is disunited with himself.” (1732)

  15. Albert Bierstadt

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