Transcendentalism 1840-1860

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Transcendentalism1840-1860

• Elissa Ku
• Michael Deo
• Paulo S

• Taylor Thomas
• Rachel Lee
• Luis Diaz

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Objective

• To understand the historical background that led
  to Transcendentalism
• To identify the styles of Transcendentalism
• To analyze Transcendentalism works

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Historical Context

• Transcendentalism 1840-1860
• Conflict over slavery
• Treatment over Native Americans
• Reform Movement
• Lyceum Movement
• Economic downturns
• During this time of instability,
  transcendentalism appealed to audiences

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Values and Belief

• Held that every individual can reach ultimate
  truths through spiritual intuition, which
  transcends reason and sensory experience.
• Belief that all of nature is symbolic of the
  spirit
• Walden- Brute Neighbor
• Belief of an optimistic view of the world as good
  and evil as nonexistent.
• Anti-TranscendentalismNathaniel Hawthorne

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Genre and Style

• Mostly wrote poetries, short-stories, novels, and
  essays.
• Wanted to redefine writing to become an American
  writer
• Wanted to reform education and society
• Focus that God can be reached through mediation
  and nature
• Intuition is our capacity to know things
  spontaneously and immediately through our
  emotions rather than our reasoning abilities
• Contrasts rational thinking

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Continue Genre and Style

• Spiritual Intuition the guidance of a spiritual
  force perceived as the intuition of an individual
  
• Rhetorical Devices Used
• Imagery words that appeal to senses
• Ex Lines 170-175 own breast was all torn
  awaydark carbuncles of the sufferers eyes
• Metaphor comparison between two unlike things
• Ex Extended metaphor red and black ants
  fighting
• Allusion to God
• Ex Line 158 Fire! For Gods sake fire!

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Significant Authors and Works

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Nature Essay
• Self-Reliance Essay
• The Apology Poem
• Fate Poem
• Henry Thoreau
• Walden- Autobiography
• Civil Disobedience-Essay

Father of Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Highlighted Passage

• Self-Reliance -Ralph Waldo Emerson
• There is a time in every mans education when he
  arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance
  that imitation is suicide that he must take
  himself for better, for worse, as his portion
  that though the wide universe is full of good, no
  kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but
  through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground
  which is given to him to til.

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Guided Practice

• The Fate Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his
  fortunes, mean or great Unknown to Cromwell as
  to me Was Cromwell's measure or degree Unknown
  to him as to his horse, If he than his groom be
  better or worse. He works, plots, fights, in
  rude affairs, With squires, lords, kings, his
  craft compares, Till late he learned, through
  doubt and fear, Broad England harbored not his
  peer Obeying time, the last to own The Genius
  from its cloudy throne. For the prevision is
  allied Unto the thing so signified Or say, the
  foresight that awaits Is the same Genius that
  creates.

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The Apology Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Think me not unkind and rude  That I walk alone
  in grove and glen  I go to the god of the wood
   To fetch his word to men.  Tax not my sloth
  that I  Fold my arms beside the brook  Each
  cloud that floated in the sky  Writes a letter
  in my book.  Chide me not, laborious band,
   For the idle flowers I brought  Every aster
  in my hand  Goes home loaded with a
  thought.  There was never mystery  But 'tis
  figured in the flowers  Was never secret
  history  But birds tell it in the bowers.  One
  harvest from thy field  Homeward brought the
  oxen strong  A second crop thine acres yield,
   Which I gather in a song. 
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Write a paragraph about the poem including two
major points of transcendentalism style and
definition. It would be graded on a 3 point
scale.
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Recommended Websites and Textbook Passages

• Orange Literature Book
• Overview of Transcendentalism pg 206-209
• Ralph Waldo Emerson pg 238-247
• Henry David Thoreau pg 252-273
• http//www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/