Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism
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Transcendentalism was

• Spiritual
• Philosophical
• Literary

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Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalism

• is not a religion (in the traditional sense of
  the word)
• It is not a religion because it does not adhere
  to the three concepts common in major religions
• a. a belief in a God
• b. a belief in an afterlife (dualism)
• c. a belief that this life has consequences on
  the next (if you're good in this life, you go to
  heaven in the next, etc.).

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Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalism

• it is a philosophy, a state of mind, and a form
  of spirituality
• Transcendentalism is monist it does not reject
  an afterlife, but its emphasis is on this life.

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Basic Assumption

• Instinct vs. Logic
• The intuitive ability, instead of the rational,
  became the means for a conscious union of the
  individual psyche with the world psyche also
  known as the Oversoul, life-force, prime mover,
  and God

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The Big Three

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• Margaret Fuller

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Basic Premises

• 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.
• The structure of the universe literally
  duplicates the structure of the individual self -
  all knowledge, therefore, begins with
  self-knowledge.
• Transcendentalists accepted the concept of nature
  as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is
  symbolic.

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Basic Premises

• The belief that individual virtue and happiness
  depend upon self-realization which depends upon
  the reconciliation of two universal psychological
  tendencies
• the self-transcending tendency - a desire to
  embrace the whole world - to know and become one
  with the world
• the self-asserting tendency - the desire to
  withdraw, remain unique and separate - an
  egotistical existence.

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Basic Premises

• The external is united with the internal
• Physical or material nature is neutral or
  indifferent or objective it is neither helpful
  nor hurtful it is neither beautiful nor ugly
• What makes one give such attributes to nature is
  that individual's imposition of her/his
  temperament or mood or psyche.
• If I'm feeling lousy, I may ignore a gorgeous
  day if I'm feeling bright and cheerful then the
  most dreary of days becomes tolerable

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Basic Premises

• Transcendentalists believed that "knowing
  yourself" and "studying nature" is the same
  activity. Nature mirrors our psyche. If I cannot
  understand myself, maybe understanding nature
  will help.

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Transcendentalism is rooted in the American past

• To Puritanism it owed its pervasive morality and
  the "doctrine of divine light." It is also
  similar to the Quaker "inner light." However,
  both these concepts assume acts of God, whereas
  intuition is an act of an individual.
• In Unitarianism, deity was reduced to a kind of
  immanent principle in every person - an
  individual was the true source of moral light.
• To Romanticism it owed the concept of nature as a
  living mystery and not universe which is fixed
  and permanent.

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Basic Tenets

• Transcendentalism is a form of idealism.
• The transcendentalist "transcends" or rises above
  the lower animalistic impulses of life (animal
  drives) and moves from the rational to a
  spiritual realm.
• The human soul is part of the Oversoul or
  universal spirit (or "float" for Whitman) to
  which it and other souls return at death.
• Therefore, every individual is to be respected
  because everyone has a portion of that Oversoul
  (God).

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Basic Tenets

• This Oversoul or Life Force or God can be found
  everywhere - travel to holy places is, therefore,
  not necessary.
• God can be found in both nature and human nature
  (Nature, Emerson stated, has spiritual
  manifestations).
• Jesus also had part of God in himself - he was
  divine as everyone is divine - except in that he
  lived an exemplary and transcendental life and
  made the best use of that Power which is within
  each one.

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Basic Tenets

• "Miracle is monster." The miracles of the Bible
  are not to be regarded as important as they were
  to the people of the past. Miracles are all about
  us - the whole world is a miracle and the
  smallest creature is one.
• "A mouse is a miracle enough to stagger
  quintillions of infidels." - Whitman
• More important than a concern about the
  afterlife, should be a concern for this life
• "the one thing in the world of value is the
  active soul." - Emerson
• Death is never to be feared, for at death the
  soul merely passes to the oversoul.
• Emphasis should be placed on the here and now.
• "Give me one world at a time." - Thoreau

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Basic Tenets

• Evil is a negative - merely an absence of good.
• Light is more powerful than darkness because one
  ray of light penetrates the dark.
• There is no belief in the existence of Satan as
  an active entity forcing humans to commit
  immorality. Humans are good and if they do
  immoral acts they do so out of ignorance and by
  not thinking.
• Power is to be obtained by defying fate or
  predestination, which seem to work against
  humans, by exercising one's own spiritual and
  moral strength. Emphasis on self-reliance.
• the emphasis is placed on a human thinking.

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Basic Tenets

• The necessity of examples of great leaders,
  writers, philosophers, and others, to show what
  an individual can become through thinking and
  action.
• It is foolish to worry about consistency, because
  what an intelligent person believes tomorrow, if
  he/she trusts oneself, tomorrow may be completely
  different from what that person thinks and
  believes today.
• "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little
  minds." - Emerson
• The unity of life and universe must be realized.
  There is a relationship between all things.
• One must have faith in intuition, for no church
  or creed can communicate truth.
• Reform must not be emphasized - true reform comes
  from within.

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Transcendental Legacy

• The influence on their contemporary writers Poe,
  Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson.
• The Concord School of Philosophy founded in 1879
• The Movements Mind Cure through Positive
  Thinking - Christian Science (Mary Baker Eddy)
  and New Thought (Warren F. Evans).
• The influence on Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. M. L. King,
  Jr. and others who protested using civil
  disobedience.
• The influence on the "beat" generation of the
  1950s and the "young radicals" of the '60s and
  '70s who practiced dissent, anti-materialism,
  anti-war, and anti-work ethic sentiments.
• The influence on Modernist writers like Frost,
  Stevens, O'Neill, Ginsberg.
• The popularity of Transcendental Meditation,
  Equal Rights, Feminism, and sexual freedoms.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

• 1803-1882

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Finish each day and be done with it. You have
done what you could some blunders and
absurdities have crept in forget them as soon as
you can. Tomorrow is a new day you shall begin
it serenely and with too high a spirit to be
encumbered with your old nonsense.
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead
where there is no path and leave a trail.
We have keys to all doors. The world is all
gates, all opportunities, Strings of tension
waiting to be struck.
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• Once you make a decision, the universe conspires
  to make it happen.
• Nothing great was ever achieved without
  enthusiasm.
• All life is an experiment. The more experiments
  you make the better.
• Insist on yourself never imitate... Every great
  man is unique

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• Make the most of yourself, for that is all there
  is of you.
• Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of
  your own mind.
• The only way to have a friend is to be one.
• Hitch your wagon to a star.
• Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

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Emersons Biography (shortened)

• Born on May 25th in 1803 in Boston
• One of eight children born into the Emerson
  family but the only one to live till full
  maturity.
• His father, William Emerson, was a reverend who
  was able to trace his family tree back to the
  first generation of Americans and was the product
  of a long line of ministers.
• When his father died in 1811 the Emersons money
  diminished quickly and forced his mother to open
  boarding houses to provide for the family.
• Emerson entered Harvard University at age
  fourteen.
• While attending Harvard university Emerson took
  quite a liking to both writing and Latin but
  performed merely only satisfactorily in
  mathematics and philosophy.
• Between the years of 1821 and 1825 upon
  graduating Harvard Emerson took a job in teaching
  in the Boston area.
• As he came from a long line of ministers Emerson
  felt inclined to join the ministry himself. In
  1825 Emerson studied at the Harvard divinity
  school but did not take a degree. In 1827 he
  preached at his fathers old church in Boston
  until he began to experience problems with his
  eyes and joints which he knew to be signs of
  tuberculosis so he sought the advice of a
  physician who advised him to spend some time in
  the south to recuperate.

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Emersons Biography (shortened)

• Emerson returned to Boston in mid 1827, and
  married Ellen Louise Tucker on September 30th
  1829. Ellen died of tuberculosis on February 8,
  1831
• In 1836 while mourning the death of his brother
  Charles Emerson kept working on one of his most
  important works Nature.
• Around the time Emerson was writing Nature he
  became a member of a transcendental club and
  founded the Dial (a literary paper) which was
  first published in 1840 with co members such as
  Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, and Henry David
  Thoreau.
• Died on April 27th 1882 at the age of 78.Close to
  one thousand people came to concord to remember
  an honor Emerson and writers such as Louisa May
  Alcott spoke at his service in the Unitarian
  church in Concord.

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Emerson

• Nature (1836)
• Considered the "gospel" of American
  Transcendentalism
• The major thesis of the essay, in Emerson's
  words, is that we should now "enjoy an original
  relation to the universe," and not become
  dependent on past experiences of others and on
  holy books, creeds and dogma.

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Emerson

• "Self-Reliance" (1841)
• This essay elaborates further on the familiar
  Emersonian belief- trust yourself. This is also a
  very popular essay written in forceful and
  memorable language.
• "There is a time in every man's education when he
  arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance
  that imitation is suicide ... " "Trust thyself
  every heart vibrates to that iron string."

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Emerson

• "The American Scholar" (1837)
• Delivered as a lecture to the Phi Beta Kappa
  Society, Harvard College, on August 31, 1837,
  "The American Scholar" is popular and important
  in expressing the practical aspects of
  Transcendentalism. Emerson prods the students to
  become more confident in their abilities and to
  take pride in Americanism
• "We have listened too long to the courtly muses
  of Europe. ... We will walk on our own feet, we
  will work with our own hands, we will speak our
  own minds."

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Emerson

• "The Divinity School Address" (1838)
• A lecture addressed to the senior class at the
  Harvard Divinity College on July 15, 1838. The
  important theme of this lecture is that truth
  cannot be presented as doctrines or creeds.
• Emerson says, "It (the truth) cannot be received
  at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not
  instruction, but provocation, that I can receive
  from another soul." He goes on to tell the
  graduating class to be original and not
  imitative.

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At Harvard, Emerson was selected as the class
poet of 1821

• His many poems can be grouped together in broad
  categories (with few examples) like
• Public, political, and patriotic ("Concord Hymn,"
  "Boston Hymn," "Voluntaries)
• Nature poems ("Berrying," "The Rhodora," "The
  Snow-Storm," "Wood-notes," "Musketaquid,"
  "May-day," "The Adirondacs," "My Garden," "The
  Titmouse," "Seashore)
• Personal poems ("To Ellen," "Thine Eyes Still
  Shined," "Threnody" "Terminus," "Grace)
• Philosophical, religious and aesthetic ("The
  Sphinx," "Each and All," "The Problem," "Uriel,"
  "Hamatreya," "Ode Inscribed to W. H. Channing,"
  "Give All to Love," "Initial, Dtmonic, and
  Celestial Love," "Merlin," "Bacchus," "Saadi,"
  "Brahma," "Days," "Two Rivers," and
  "Waldeinsamkeit")

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Henry David Thoreau

• 1817-1862

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Thoreau

• Born on July 12, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts.
• Thoreau studied at Concord Academy (1828-33), and
  at Harvard University, graduating in 1837.
• He was a teacher in Canton, Massachusetts
  (1835-36), and at Center School (1837).
• In 1835 he contracted tuberculosis and suffered
  from recurring bouts throughout his life.
• American essayist, poet, and practical
  philosopher, best-known for his autobiographical
  story of life in the woods, Walden (1854).
• Thoreau was one of the leading personalities in
  New England Transcendentalism. His "Civil
  Disobedience" (1849) influenced Gandhi and Martin
  Luther King Jr.
• A decisive turning point in Thoreau's life came
  when he met Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord. He
  was a member of Emerson's household from 1841 to
  1843, earning his living as a handyman.
• In 1845 Thoreau built a home on the shores of
  Walden Point for twenty-eight dollars, and
  described his observations and speculations in A
  Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (1849).

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Thoreau

• Thoreau's most famous essay, "Civil Disobedience"
  (1849), was a result of a overnight visit in 1846
  to a jail, when he refused to pay his taxes in
  protest against the Mexican War and the extension
  of slavery. Later Thoreau lectured and wrote
  about the evils of slavery and helped fleeing
  slaves.
• Walden or, Life in the Woods described a
  two-year period in Thoreau's life from March 1845
  to September 1847 during which the author retired
  from the town to live alone at Walden Pond.
  Although Thoreau never earned a substantial
  living by his writings, his works fill 20
  volumes.
• Aware that he was dying of tuberculosis, Thoreau
  cut short his travels and returned to Concord,
  where he prepared some of his journals for
  publication. He died at Concord on May 6, 1862.
• Thoreau's letters were edited by his friend
  Emerson and published posthumously in 1865. Poems
  Of Nature appeared in 1895 and Collected Poems in
  1943. Thoreau's collection of journals was
  published in 1906 in 14 volumes.

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Thoreau

• "Resistance to Civil Government" also known as
  "Civil Disobedience" (1849)
• For failing to pay poll tax, Thoreau was sent to
  jail. The famous and influential essay is the
  result of that gesture. Its message is simple and
  daring - he advocates "actions through
  principles." If the demands of a government or a
  society are contrary to an individual's
  conscience, it is his/her duty to reject them.
  Upholding moral law as opposed to social law
  "divides the individual, separating the
  diabolical in him from the divine." Inspired by
  Thoreau's message, Mahatma Gandhi organized a
  massive resistance of Indians against the British
  occupation of India. Thoreau's words have also
  inspired the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the
  peace marchers and the numerous
  conscientious-objectors to the Vietnam war.

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Thoreau

• Walden (1854)
• Considered one of the all-time great books,
  Walden is a record of Thoreau's two year
  experiment of living at Walden Pond. The chief
  emphasis is on the simplifications and enjoyment
  of life now.
• Known as
• a nature book
• a do-it-yourself guide to simple life
• a satirical criticism of modern life and living
• a spiritual book.

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Thoreau's Poetry

• Although Thoreau wrote a considerable number of
  poems, very few are regarded as excellent.
• Among those which are well-known are
  "Light-Winged Smoke, Icarian Bird," "A Winter and
  Spring Scene," and "Low in the Eastern Sky.
• Common themes of Thoreau's poetry are nature,
  impressions of life, and transcendental
  philosophy.