Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau

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Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)

• Urged people to think for themselves rather than
  follow rules that had been handed down for
  generations.
• Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity
• of your own mind.
• The end of the human race will be that it will
  eventually die of civilization.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

• LIFE EVENTS
• Born in Boston (1803) where is father was a
  Unitarian minister
• His father died when Emerson was 8, leaving the
  family with financial problems.
• Entered Harvard College at age 14 Received
  scholarship to Harvard Divinity School at age 22
• By 1829, a successful Boston minister married

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

• LIFE EVENTS cont.
• 1831 (2 years later)Emersons life took a new
  path his wife died he had been developing his
  own beliefs that conflicted with those of the
  churchhe decided to leave the ministry.
• New Belief Each person contained a spark of
  divinity and that people should search for truths
  in nature and within themselves.
• After resigning, he traveled to EuropeInfluenced
  by English writers (William Wordsworth, Samuel
  Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle)
• Returned to U.S. in 1833 (Concord, Mass.) began
  lecturing and writing
• Remarried 2 years later.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

• LIFE EVENTS cont.
• In Concord, founded the TRANSCENDENTAL
  CLUBdevoted to discussions of literature,
  philosophy, religion.
• At age 33, published Naturea long essay that
  set forth the major ideas of transcendentalism.
  Nature along w/ other lectures urged Americans
  to think for themselves and to resist bonds of
  conformity.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson(in a nutshell)

• American essayist and poet
• a leader of the philosophical movement of
  transcendentalism.
• Influenced by such schools of thought as English
  romanticism, Neo-Platonism, and Hindu philosophy.
  
• Emerson is noted for his skill in presenting his
  ideas eloquently and in poetic language.

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Ralph Waldo EmersonFamous Works
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Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862)

• If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
  perhaps it is because he hears a different
  drummer.
• One of his first memories was of staying awake at
  night "looking through the stars to see if I
  could see God behind them." One might say he
  never stopped looking into nature for ultimate
  Truth.

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Henry David Thoreau

• LIFE EVENTS
• Graduated from Harvard, became a school teacher,
  resigned b/c he was ordered to discipline
  students by whipping them
• Home Concord, Mass.
• Devoted his time to nature study, reading,
  writing, and odd jobs

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Henry David Thoreau

• LIFE EVENTS cont.
• Very close to his brother, John
• When John died of tetanus (cut himself shaving),
  Thoreau was traumatized
• Thoreau paid tribute to his brother by writing an
  account of the camping and canoeing trip that he
  and John had taken a few years before.
• He needed a quiet place to write, so

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Henry David Thoreau

• LIFE EVENTS cont.
• He persuaded his friend, Ralph
• Waldo Emerson, to allow him to
• build a cabin on his land at Walden Pond.
• Thoreau lived at Walden Pond for 2 years, 2
  months, and 2 days.
• He observed and kept journals about what he saw
  on his trip (nature writing).
• At age 28 he wrote his masterpiece, Walden, based
  on his observations there.

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Henry David Thoreau

• INTERESTING LIFE FACTS
• He was a dedicated abolitionist helped slaves
  escape through the Underground Railroad.
• He became a popular lecturer known for his whit
  philosophical ideas.
• Thoreau and his friend Emerson, who outlived him
  by 2 decades, are buried near each other in
  Concord.
• When he died at age 44, few people outside
  Concord had ever heard of him. It was not until
  the 20th century that Thoreau became famous
  around the world as a thinker and
  environmentalist.

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Henry David ThoreauFamous Works
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Civil Disobedience
"If the law is of such nature that it requires
you to be an agent of injustice to another, then
I say, break the law."
July 1846 Thoreaus Night in Jail
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Quotes by Emerson Thoreau
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Express yourself...... C A L V I N
                                                  
                                                  
                                                  
                                        _________
________Most of the shadows of this life are
caused by standing on one's own sunshine. -Ralph
Waldo Emerson
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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. -Emerson
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
-Emerson
There is properly no history only biography.
-Emerson