Literature in the American Renaissance The Flowering of New England 1840-1860

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Literature in the American RenaissanceThe
Flowering of New England1840-1860

• Transcendentalists
• Anti-transcendentalists
• Brahmins
• Fireside Poets

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Characteristics of Period

• Rush of optimism characterized American
  expansion, reform, and literature
• Technological increases increase in reading
  audience increased opportunities for writers
• American literature achieved a universal voice

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Major writers of the time

• Emerson (Concord)
• Thoreau (Concord)
• Hawthorne (Salem)
• Melville (Pittsfield)
• Longfellow (Cambridge)
• Whittier (Haverhill and Amesbury)
• Holmes (Cambridge)
• Lowell (Cambridge)
• Dickenson (Amherst)

• Massachusetts home of 8 of these writers
• Boston touched most of their lives, but names are
  often associated with smaller towns

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Transcendentalism

• Roots in Boston and Cambridge in 1830s
• Western branch in STL in 1840s
• Parted from philosophies of John Locke who
  asserted that knowledge comes from the outside,
  through our senses (tabula rasa)

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• During 18th century (1700s), Lockes idea that
  knowledge must derive from 5 senses dominated
• 1800s transcendentalism asserts that knowledge
  comes from beyond our senses
• Humanism Naturalism Soul

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Transcendentalism

• Neither a religion nor a philosophy nor a
  literary theory (elements of all 3)
• Knowledge comes from inside (intuition) and not
  from our senses
• The God in us
• All humanity knows how to behave if we trust our
  inner light
• Dont look to the past, but rather within
• Literature has no fixed idea, genre, or structure

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Transcendentalism

• Because knowledge is within the self, one does
  not need the past, the family, or the society as
  guides to behavior
• Radical Individualism
• Self transcends and when left to human nature,
  goodness will prevail

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Emerson and Thoreau

• Insisted one should follow ones instinct
  wherever it leads, irrespective of convention
• Do whatever one wants deeply to do
• Great American literature would arise not by
  following the forms and language of other
  cultures, but by writing about American things in
  and American landscape
• Nation, like the individual, must realize itself

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Emerson

• Intuition never reasons, never proves, it
  simply perceives
• highest power is the soul
• Similar to Puritan views of experiencing God
  but, very different in the sense Emerson believed
  ALL could experience God firsthand (not reserved
  for elect few)
• Over-soul---drives everything in nature to
  realize its inner potential

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Thoreau

• Took transcendentalist ideas and his naturalist
  talents to create Walden
• Weaves together natural, human, and spiritual
  meanings
• Nature is the means to self-knowledge

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Anti-transcendentalists

• Attacked transcendentalists for ignoring 2
  powerful realities reality of evil and reality
  of human love
• Argue transcendentalism rests on humanitys
  goodness---but when left to its own devices, why
  would humanity behave well?

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Anti-transcendentalists

• Wondered if a self freed from society might be
  freed only to release violence and chaos
• Humans cant escape conscience, institutions, or
  the past since they arose from deep emotional
  needs
• Unbridgeable gap between human desires
• Mixture of good and evil in all human motives

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Hawthorne and Melville

• Not all humanity is good
• Think about Hawthornes commentary on society in
  The Scarlet Letter
• People are seekers of truth, not finders of it
• Humanity, while it might be good, is restricted
  by dark forces that it cannot control

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Hawthorne and Melville

• People can be not only reasonable but also
  unpredictable, unreasonable, filled with
  self-conceit
• Over-emphasis on the individual will lead to
  destruction
• The self we display to the world is no different
  than the inner self
• Harsh industrial conditions, slavery, and the
  Civil War seem to invalidate transcendentalism

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Fireside Poets

• Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell
• Shared common themes and techniques
• Poetry deals mainly with nature, family, and
  mythical material
• Relatively easy to read for the literate family
  circle of the time as well as scholars

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Brahmins

• brahmin is reference to highest caste in Hindu
  society
• Lowell, Longfellow, and Holmes were considered
  high caste New Englanders
• Represented good taste and distinguished
  achievements
• Unaffected by transcendentalist movement

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Emily Dickinson

• Also a poet during this time period
• Works were largely unpublished during this time
  though

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American Actuality

• Anti-transcendentalists assertion of uneven
  balance within humans as opposed to the
  transcendentalist optimism
• The times reflect the truth of Hawthorne and
  Melville, not Emerson and Thoreau
• Both optimism in human possibilities and
  appraisal of human limits were needed for
  American literature to fully mature.