American Transcendentalism

American Transcendentalism 1835-1880

America between Wars • The time between the American Revolution and lasting through the American Civil War was very tumultuous. • Americans were pushing across the landscape, fighting over it, settling it, and ultimately transforming it. • Along with the political and moral crisis culminating in the Civil War, many technological and social changes—the railroad, the telegraph, photography, powered presses, and a quantum leap in the availability of inexpensive books, newspapers, and journals—had enormous impact on American literary life. http://www.wwnorton.com/naal/vol_B/topic.htm

Historical/Literary Timeline 1850: Fugitive Slave Act compromise of 1850 obliges free states to return escaped slaves to slaveholders. 1851: Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin 1854:Henry David Thoreau, Walden 1854: Republican Party formed, consolidating antislavery factions 1855:Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass 1857: Supreme Court Dred Scott decision denies citizenship to African Americans 1858: Abraham Lincoln, "A House Divided“ 1860-65:Emily Dickinson writes several hundred poems 1861: South Carolina batteries fire on U.S. fort, initiating the Civil War; Southern states secede from the Union and found the Confederate States of America. 1776: America declares independence 1829-37: President Andrew Jackson encourages westward movement of white population 1823: Monroe Doctrine warns all European powers not to establish new colonies on either American continent 1830: Congress passes Indian Removal Act (relocate eastern Native Americans west of the Mississippi) 1836:Emerson writes Nature 1836: Transcendentalists meet informally in Boston and Concord 1838: Underground Railroad aids slaves escaping north, often to Canada 1838-39: “Trail of Tears”: Cherokees forced from their homelands by federal troops 1846-48: The U.S.-Mexican War 1848-49: California Gold Rush 1850:Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Waning European Influence • Americans wanted to produce unique American literature that could ‘compete’ with the literature coming out of Europe. Authors, poets, and philosophers attempted to create a uniquely American body of literature. • Decades after independence from England, American intellectuals believed it was time for literary independence as well. • And so they deliberately went about creating literature, essays, novels, philosophy, poetry, and other writing that were clearly different from anything produced in England, France, Germany, or other European nations. • American writers tried new forms and new ideas for literature. • They rejected the idea they had to follow European “rules.”

Transcendentalism emerges… Transcendentalism is a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that advocates reliance on romantic intuition and moral human conscience. Transcendentalism first emerged out of New England around 1830. Transcendentalism refers to the belief that in order to determine the ultimate meaning of God, the universe, self, or other important matters, one must transcend, or go beyond, everyday human experiences in the physical world.

Basic Tenets… • Strong belief in human perfectibility and goodness. • Direct access to benevolent God (not through organized religion or ritual), • Divinity of humanity, nature, intellectual pursuits, and social justice. • Everything in the world, including human beings, is a reflection of the Divine Soul. • Self-Reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and blind conformity to custom and tradition. Intuition is an important tool for discovering truth

Transcendental Thinkers… Intellectuals soon formed “The Transcendental Society,” which aimed at creating an utopia. They formed an intuitive, experiential, passionate, more than-just-rational perspective. • The word Transcend (v) means: • To pass beyond the limits of: emotions that transcend understanding. • To be greater than, as in intensity or power; surpass: love that transcends infatuation. • To exist above and independent of (material experience or the universe). • Famous Transcendental thinkers include: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T. W. Higginson, and Frederick Douglass.

Growing Social Concerns… • Many intellectuals were concerned over America’s growing social/political issues such as: slavery, working conditions, political corruption, and the Mexican war. • Many of the Transcendentalists were involved in social reform (especially anti-slavery and women's rights). • Transcendentalists believed that at the level of the human soul, all people had access to divine inspiration and desired freedom, knowledge, and truth. • Thus, those institutions of society which fostered vast differences in the ability to be educated and self-directed were institutions to be reformed. Women and African-descended slaves were human beings who deserved more ability to become educated, to fulfill their human potential, and to be fully human.

Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882) • Born the son of a minister, Emerson attended Harvard (he didn’t do that well), went on to divinity school, married a wealthy woman, and set out to be a Unitarian minister in a small town. • The surprising death of his wife lead to a “spiritual awakening” which served as the foundation for his philosophy of life. • His words were widely quoted, and he was most interested with what others believed to be truth. • Considered the “father” of the transcendental movement, Emerson had strong opinions of other writers and ways of thinking. Back

Important Works • Nature (1836) expresses basic ideas of his philosophy and love of nature. • The American Scholar (1837) applies Transcendentalism to American culture and politics. • Essays (1841), including “Self-Reliance” and “The Over-Soul”

From “Self-Reliance” • Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. • A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds… With consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do. • What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.

From “Self-Reliance” • How does (and should) a person define his/her place in society? • What are the two major barriers to self-reliance? • What are the implications of self-reliance for daily life?

Reading Nature • Reclaim/redefine “culture”—bring it back to life • Prose poem—read both for what it says literally and what it suggests about what cannot be said clearly • Three underlying assumptions: -Dominance of the soul -Sufficiency of nature -Immediacy of God

“Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed in the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)

Henry David Thoreau(1817-1862) • Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard. • Taught and mentored by Emerson and other great minds, Thoreau became increasingly famous for his Walden experiment (1845-46). • His time in the woods nurtured his love for animals and his appreciation of the natural world. • His philosophy later expanded to include ways of stating, changing, an redirecting political energy. • With the exception of Walden, Thoreau is most famous for his essay, “Civil Disobedience.” Back

A Different Drummer • Thoreau lived an unconventional life according to unconventional principles. • Reluctant to work for a living at a prosaic job, he lead a simple life only earning what he needed to survive. • Though an outspoken abolitionist, (during his lifetime his most widely read works were such antislavery tracts as Slavery in Massachusetts and A Plea for Captain John Brown) most readers remember Thoreau as a naturalist. • To this day, Thoreau remains among the most important and challenging of American nature writers, philosophers, and social critics.

Walden or Life in the Woods • His most famous book, Walden (1854), records the two years he spent living in a self-crafted cabin beside Emerson's Walden Pond. • The Walden experiment reflected the greater philosophy of Thoreau's life: he believed that people should not be driven by materialistic desires but should live according to their needs, simplifying their life-styles rather than earning money to support lavish and ostentatious show.

A new American Style • Uses many aphorisms – terse formulation of a truth or sentiment – to express ideas. • Example: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. • Aphorism makes Thoreau’s ideas – though they are revolutionary – seem sensible and even “folksy”.

“…I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live sturdily and Spartan-like…” from Walden, or Life in the Woods Henry David Thoreau

“Civil Disobedience” 1849original title: “Resistance to Civil Government” • While living at Walden Pond, Thoreau was imprisoned for refusing to pay his poll tax as a statement of protest against slavery and what he saw as an unjust war with Mexico. • After someone else paid his tax, he was released, but he gave an 1848 lecture on "Resistance to Civil Government"--since published as "Civil Disobedience"--to explain his action. • His essay helped inspire the Danish resistance in World War II, Gandhi in India, opposition of 1950’s McCarthyism, the struggle against South African apartheid, the American civil rights movement, and 1970's anti-war activists. "I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest." - Martin Luther King Jr., Autobiography, Chapter 2

American Transcendentalism