American Transcendentalism

(1830-1850)

American Transcendentalism

Idealistic philosophy, spiritual position, and literary movement that advocates reliance on romantic intuition and moral human conscience

Belief that humans can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses and of logic to a plane of “higher truths”

Value spirituality (direct access to benevolent God, not organized religion or ritual), divinity of humanity, nature, intellectual pursuits, social justice

Spirit of Revivalism Transcendentalism

can be read as one of many spiritual revivals American culture fostered in antebellum years

Image: Religious Camp Meeting, J. Maze Burbank, c. 1839Burbank, c. 1839

Rises out of two key intellectual and spiritual traditions:

European Romanticism American Unitarianism

Image: Second Church of Boston, where Emerson held first ministerial position

Nature and Transcendentalism External world of nature

actually reflects invisible, spiritual reality

Self-reliance: seek the truth in immediate perceptions of the world

Then one can reconcile body and soul (which is part of “Universal Soul” or “Oversoul,” source of all life)

Image: Niagara Falls, Thomas Cole, 1829

The Sublime Heightened psychological state Overwhelming experience of

awe, reverence, comprehension Achieved when soul is

immersed in grandeur of nature Sense of transcendence from

everyday world

Image: Wanderer, Caspar David Friedrich

Concord, Massachusetts, 1850s

Rises out of two key intellectual and spiritual traditions:

European Romanticism American Unitarianism

Image: Second Church of Boston, where Emerson held first ministerial position

Roots in American Unitarianism

Emerson a Unitarian minister Unitarianism (Christian denomination) rises in late

1700s; formalized by William Ellery Channing, early 1800s

Liberal church—broken from strict New England Congregationalism

Reject total depravity of humanity Believe in perfectibility of humanity Reject idea of “angry God”—focus on benevolent God UNITY of God rather than TRINITY of Father, Son, Holy

Spirit

Emerson’s Break from Unitarianism

Too intellectualized, too removed from direct experience of God

Extend and radicalize Unitarian beliefs in benevolent God, closeness of God and humanity

Bring these spiritual ideas to life If Unitarians believe that truth comes only

through empirical study and rationality . . . Transcendentalists take that idea & add in

romanticized mysticism—humankind capable of direct experience of the holy (Laurence Buell)

Transcendentalism as Spiritual Revival Ironic refiguring of Puritanism,

without the theological dogma Transcendentalists lonely explorers

(pilgrims) outside society and convention

Trying to form new society based on metaphysical awareness

Trying to purify society by purifying hearts and minds

Nature a spiritual manifesto

Image: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spiritual Revival Transcendentalism is “a

pilgrimage from the idolatrous world of creeds and rituals to the temple of the Living God in the soul. Is [is] a putting to silence of tradition and formulas, that the Sacred Oracle might be heard through intuitions of the singled-eyed and pure-hearted.”

(William Henry Channing)

Spiritual Revival

“ “That belief we term Transcendentalism . . . That belief we term Transcendentalism . . . maintains that man has ideas, that come not maintains that man has ideas, that come not through the five senses of the powers of through the five senses of the powers of reasoning, but are either the result of direct reasoning, but are either the result of direct revelations from God, his immediate inspiration, revelations from God, his immediate inspiration, or his immanent presence in the spiritual world.” or his immanent presence in the spiritual world.”

(Charles Mayo Ellis, “An Essay on Transcendentalism,” 1842)(Charles Mayo Ellis, “An Essay on Transcendentalism,” 1842)

Spiritual Revival

“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)

The Transparent Eyeball

Image: Christopher Pearse Cranch, parody of lines from Nature, 1838

Reading Nature

Goal: 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: Primacy of the soul Sufficiency of nature Immediacy of God

Write this downWrite this down

Core Tenets:Core Tenets: The individual is most importantThe individual is most important Nature is valued. Contact with nature is seen Nature is valued. Contact with nature is seen

as a way to get back to basics.as a way to get back to basics. Emphasis on self-perfectionEmphasis on self-perfection The human mind can figure out anythingThe human mind can figure out anything Each person is a part of God; God is in all Each person is a part of God; God is in all

thingsthings referred to the “Over-Soul” as the thing to referred to the “Over-Soul” as the thing to

which all human souls return after deathwhich all human souls return after death Emphasizes the “spiritual” over the rationalEmphasizes the “spiritual” over the rational