Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Best Friends with Thoreau
• Self-Taught- He was a lecturer and writer
• Father died at a young age
• Aunt influenced him in philosophy
• Attended Harvard
• Was a teacher and minister at the 2nd Church of
  Boston
• Married to Ellen Tucker

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• Walt Whitman praised Emerson the writer
• Moved away from Calvinist ideas in his later life
• Started the Transcendental Club- Remember we just
  learned what transcendental ideas were last class
  on wksh
• Placed great value in intuition

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• Oversoul- belief that one being connects us all
• Transcentalism was a religious movement in Europe
  but only a literary movement in America
• Emerson believed that people were innately good

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4 characteristics of Transcendentalists

• 1. belief that people are innately divine
• 2. individuals can discover truth through nature
  rather than religious doctrine
• 3. they wanted to be self- reliant (rely on
  themselves rather than other people for
  everything)
• 4. nature is a symbol of the spirit- found truth
  through intuition and it can be found through
  nature

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Henry David Thoreau

• 1817-1862- born in Concord, MA
• Mother was a boarder- met all kinds of people
• Moved to Walden Pond July 4, 1845
• At 28 he was considered a failure
• He only lasted two weeks as a teacher because he
  would not whip a child
• Attended Harvard
• Hawthorne wrote to newspaper complaining about
  Thoreau

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• Never married
• He received independence in college
• He wore a green jacket to chapel
• English literature and German philosophy
  influenced Thoreau into Transcendentalism

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Walden Pond

• Walden Pond was only 2 miles from Concord- not
  very self-reliant
• He went to town once a month
• Thoreau claims people are one-dimensional- we get
  caught up in living
• Walden is considered successful because of
  blending of style and content
• Only spent two years here

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• He believed that America was extending their land
  for more slave holding territory
• He spent two nights in jail because he wouldnt
  pay his pole tax
• In response to his experience in jail he wrote
  Resistance to Civil Government
• Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were influenced
  by this essay

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• Thoreau died from TB
• His aunt asked when he was dying if he had made
  his peace with God.
• He replied, I didnt know we had ever
  quarreled.