Transcendentalism

By Jeanne Brock

It’s Famous!

• "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men."

• This quote was the very basis of Emerson’s view on Transcendentalism.

• Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Emerson was an American lecturer, philosopher, essayist, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.

• He lived form 1803 to 1882, and married Lidian Jackson with whom he had 1 son.

• Emerson was mostly known for his individualism and essays such as Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, Circles, The Poet and Experience.

• He is considered to be one of the greatest lectureurs of his time, and was well respected by many people.

• Other important transcendentalists were Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, Frederic Henry Hedge, and Theodore Parker.

• Henry David Thoreau is most well known for his essay, “Civil Disobedience.”

• "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.“

• This is how Ralph Waldo Emerson described people in society.

• Transcendentalism was inspired by American romanticism and the dark European romanticism.

• Based on ideas of unity with nature and of individualism from society.

• Henry David Thoreau was a student of Emerson’s and was more radical in his beliefs than Emerson was.

• Thoreau was arrested several times for refusal to pay taxes. He felt that taxes were one of the most deliberate forms of conformity.

Society

• Society at this time criticized Emerson and his colleagues, saying that it was irresponsible and crazy.

Society continued..

• Many transcendentalist were viewed by society as atheists and trouble-makers.

• Some, like Henry David Thoreau, were arrested for their rebellion.

Art

• The artists of this time period were just as individualistic as the writers of Transcendentalism.

• Their pieces involve nature and the beauty and power of natural elements.

Beliefs

• Established principally by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his book Nature (1836) Principles of Transcendentalism:

• all objects are miniature versions of the universe • intuition and conscience "transcend" experience

and reason • man is one with nature • God is everywhere, in nature and in man • extension of Romanticism