Emerson

Course Links
Lesson Plans
Course Documents
Links
Secondary Sources

Quick Links
Library Links
Citing Sources

Transcendentalism: Emerson
Lesson Plan

Image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_ca1857.jpg/395px-Ralph_Waldo_Emerson_ca1857.jpg

Introduction
We take another chronological leap here into the mid nineteenth century. Make yourselves comfortable, because we'll be spending some time here. Labeled by scholars as "The American Renaissance," from F. O. Matthiesen's book of the same name, it marks the time period when American literature came into its own, establishing a more distinctive voice, but more importantly, when writers of talent began to emerge en masse .

We begin with Transcendentalism, a philosophical/religious/aesthetic movement centered primarily in New England, the intellectual hub of the United States (this at a time when Ohio was considered "The West").

"Where does it come from?" you say . . . I like that curiosity. I see two main influences:

European romanticism (the 4 I's : a mnemonic to remember the traits of this belief): authors include the British writers William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Blake and the German author Johann Goethe (pronounced "Girder").
- Newfound wonder over nature
- Emphasis on self
- Emphasis on emotion over intellect
- Desire to break with tradition
- See short overview "Romantic Era"
Religious context:
- Reaction to the Great Awakening -- a movement away from the harsh religious strictures of neo-puritanism. Adopts many of the ideals of Emanuel Swedenborg , a Swedish thinker and Christian mystic who rejected the trappings of religious worship and in favor of a more direct and open worship and life devoted to good works. Transcendentalism has religious roots, but it is not a religion. It is a more generalized belief that can alter/effect a person's religious, moral, and aesthetic outlook.

Transcendentalism fits into the overall interest in reform movement as well. As Emerson noted in a 1840 letter to Carlyle, "We are all a little mad here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has the draft of a new community in his pocket" (qtd. in Nye 54). Emerson left the Unitarian church because he couldn't believe in its doctrine -- thus he was the kind of person who stuck to his beliefs. Reform comes in when he decides to go public -- write and speak -- about these beliefs.

Though we only read two main exemplars, Emerson and Thoreau, Transcendentalism was a rather crowded field among New England Intellectuals. One American writer thinker who strongly influenced Emerson was Ellery Channing. In the same year of the publication of Nature , five other writers published similar books: George Ripley Discources on the Philosophy of Religion ; Convers Francis, Christianity as a Purely Internal Principle ; Orestes Brownson, New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church ; Bronson Alcott, Conversations with Children on the Gospels ; W. H. Furness, Remarks on the Four Gospels .

It takes many of its ideas -- including an emphasis on feelings and nature and as the text book suggests, vocabulary-- from the English Romantic writers Coleridge and Wordsworth, to the European writers Rousseau, Swedenbourg, Kant and the classic writers Plato and Aristotle. As you can see, Emerson read very widely.

An important qualification, and one that escaped many contemporary critics (see Greike), is that while Transcendentalism has religious roots, it is not a religion. Instead it is a more generalized belief that can alter/effect a person’s religious, moral, and aesthetic outlook.

A caveat: remember that Transcendentalism -- like the beliefs of any intellectual or social movements -- was not shared and followed by all. In fact, it was derided by most Americans (again, see Greike), though eventually Emerson became a kind of elder intellectual statesman for America -- and had a profound influence on early 20th century intellectual thought via William James, James Dewey, Charles Pierce, and other American intellectuals.

Moving to Emerson's prose style, you'll find his work aphoristic -- it seems composed of pithy sayings. His essays are pieced together from his journals, and later, from his speaking tours.

Thus . . . Reading tip: you have to be "on" for Emerson. his prose does not move by paragraph, but by sentence. Read them slowly, often, and repeatedly, and you'll see his logic. He's discussing metaphysics, which by its nature is difficult to put into words.

Terms and People to Know
Like our first list of Terms on Puritanism, there's quite a bit to take in here. I would advice reading it now, then coming back and reviewing it as we work through the main writers influenced by Transcendentalism: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Dickinson.

Unitarian: Broadly Christian creed that avoids dogmas and creeds. Popular among New England intellectuals in the 19th century, it was the religion that Emerson first preached in, then left.

Platonism: One of the philosophical tenants Idealism is based on. In Transcendentalism, it provides the philosophical underpinning behind the body/spirit, me/not me dichotomy of Emerson, and the more general desire to, as Thoreau notes, "penetrate the surface of things" (Walden 1858) (and if you see a connection between this last quote and Emerson’s "transparent eyeball," I’d say you’re being a "creative reader." Which means you’re on your way to becoming an "American Scholar.")

To illustrate this connection it's useful to compare it to Plato's "Allegory of the Caves" from Book VII The Republic (a central work of these writers). In this story Plato describes a group of people chained since birth in a cave. They are constrained in movement so they can only see themselves, objects, and others as shadows cast upon a screen. To them, the shadows are "real," because they cannot compare it with anything else. Yet when one of them is released, educated, and returns with the knowledge that shadows are not real, those that have remained deride him and argue that his "eyesight is spoiled" (187). Plato seems to suggest here that reality isn't an extrinsic, constant entity, but a personal mental construction, and as such, is mutable and variable instead of unchanging and static.

Plato. From The Republic. Classics of Western Philosophy. Ed. Steven M. Cahn. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hacket Publishing Company, 1990. 112-190.

Thomas Carlyle: Friend of Emerson and British philosopher and writer. Emerson drew early inspiration from Carlyle's book Sartor Resartus, which espoused a similar philosophy to American Transcendentalism. For a "difficult" writer he was very popular in America, as the quote from a memoirist of the period shows: "Everybody read Sartor Resartus, a crabbed, wise book, with evidence of Carlyle's German browsings on more than one page. Carlyle was a sort of British Thor: when he thundered, people ran out to take a look at the weather" (Reese 197). Excerpts of his books were often reprinted in American newspapers. See below for quotations from Sartor.

Pantheism: worship of nature (with an emphasis on the religious connotation in "worship")

Romanticism: an aesthetic/philosophic approach to art characterized by a freedom from the strictures of realism, an emphasis on the individual and feelings over rationality, and a tendency to look to nature rather than humans or religion for "truth." It seeks to transcend the physical and base itself on an idealized vision of the world.

Brook Farm: one of many utopian communities in 19th century America. Located in West Roxbury Massachusetts and supported by Emerson (Hawthorne briefly lived there and satirized it in his novel The Blithesdale Romance), it represents how seriously many took the reforms (in this case Fourierism) of the day. Similar, in many ways, to the communes of the 1960s (the Oneida Community in upstate New York even advocated a kind of "Free Love"), these communities mark a concrete representation of the romantic ideals sweeping the nation. As Emerson noted in a 1840 letter to Carlyle, "We are all a little mad here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has the draft of a new community in his pocket'" (qtd. in Nye Society 54)

The Dial: Transcendental magazine edited by Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and others. Much of Emerson's poetry appeared there.

Emanuel Swedenborg: Swedish theologian (1688-1772) who preached a doctrine on individual and internal living and religion (cf. Emerson's "the Over-Soul") with an emphasis on living a "natural" life. Emerson's thought is much indebted to Swedenborg

Transcendentalism: Great -- now I have to try and define the ineffable . . . . Here goes. A literary/social/aesthetic/quasi-religious movement which stemmed from a belief that God manifested himself in nature. It isn't pantheism because it does not suggest that god is nature, just that god is best exemplified in nature rather than any belief system as exhibited in organized religion. A reactionary movement, it fit in well with the reform minded impulse of the nineteenth-century. While obviously a reaction to the prevailing Calvinist creeds, it shares with it a belief in a dichotomous view of the world: the body/world v. spirit/soul; the imaginary/real. And to reach this "real" world means you have to "transcend" the physical world . . . . which means we have to -- as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, et al. suggest -- change our ways.

Abolitionism: The movement to repeal slavery in the U.S. (i.e. to "abolish" slavery).

Fugitive Slave Act: Part of the Compromise of 1850, this federal law made it a crime to assist a runaway slave. This transformed those Northerners who helped run the Underground Railroad into criminals. Both Thoreau and Emerson -- who were abolishinists -- felt that both the Missouri Compromise and the Fugitive Slave law were immoral and wrote against it.

Life

Times
See below

Overview: "Self-Reliance" . Literature and Its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them . Joyce Moss and George Wilson. Vol. 2: Civil Wars to Frontier Societies (1800-1880s) . Detroit: Gale, 1997. From Literature Resource Center

Class Discussion

What tone about the present day [1836] does Emerson set in the first paragraph? Note, in particular , his word choice. "SEPULCHRES," "ORIGINAL RELATION" "GROPE ABOUT THE DRY BONES OF THE PAST" (1107-07)
Who does the "our" refer to on 1107, top paragraph? Who is the "we" as well? Why include this?
What is the "NOT ME"?
What is his definition of Art, and how is it different than the common perception of art?
What two kinds of beauty does Emerson describe?
Why the importance of vision?
What is he suggesting about nature in the lines "The visible creation is the terminus or the circumference of the invisible world . . . ." (1118)? Is this positive or negative?
"The foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every man is as every other man. What is not good they call the worst, and what is not hateful, they call the best" (1119). What then does he suggest we should do?
Bottom of 1121 and top 1122 -- what is he saying about the nature of all things?
What does Emerson say about language? How does this tie into his view of nature?
What is idealism? How does it connect to Emerson?
What is Emerson saying about evil? IT WILL DISAPPER (CF. 1134)
Religion and Pantheism
What's his view of nature and religion? How could he be accused of pantheism?
How does he feel about total depravity?
Art
what helps us develop idealism? POETRY 1124
Emerson notes that "behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present; that spirit is one and not compound . . . ." (1129). What does this suggest about his thinking of nature/spirit? Is it positive or negative? What makes you think so? Cf. Melville
Reason/intellect
In the chapter "Prospects," Emerson sets up a dichotomy of "Empirical science" v. "manly contemplation" (1130). Disregarding the gender bias, what's the difference/distinction b/t these two for Emerson? Which is better and why?
Culture/current events
Why ask "What is a woman" in "Prospects"?
Connection to Romanticism
What does a poet do?
How is E's connection b/t "religion and ethics" similar to Franklin 's?
What distinction does he make b/t idealism and religion? How is this similar to Franklin ?
on "The Poet" Why are symbols so important to Emerson? Why do they make poetry? He writes that "We are far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use. We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity" (1186). What does he mean by "a terrible simplicity" (hint -- terrible can be good, right?)? See also Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral" ("Compensation" 140-141 Norton edition)

"The American Scholar" (1135) [1837]

Without looking at the book, complete this sentence from "The American Scholar" "The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of _____" (1136)
"Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding" (1137). Then why are we reading his books?
According to Emerson, are books bad? What does he warn against?
What does he mean by "creative reading" (1139)
What does Emerson feel is the role of the scholar in society? (1142)
How is "to defer never to the popular cry" both good and bad? (1142 -- cf. quote about "popgun is a popgun" 1143)
Is his question on "every man a student" (1136) true?
What ideas in "The American Scholar" are similar to ideas in Nature ?
How does "our day of dependence" (1135) connect to nature?
How does "the genius always looks forward . . ." (1138) connect to nature
"The so called practical man" (1139) connect to Nature
What does he suggest, early on, about the position/role of the intellectual in American culture.
Influence of other cultures/nations
"Our day of dependence . . . to the learning of other lands" (1135) cf. publishing practices which ensured that foreign writers were cheaper

Self Reliance

What so bad about traveling? "Traveling is a fool's paradise" (1173). What does he consider is wrong with traveling? How does traveling contradict his idea of self-reliance? Find a quote to explain this.

Group Questions

Group Questions #1

Using the following definition from the Backgrounds of American Literary Thought, trace out, using examples from Nature, how Emerson exemplifies Transcendental philosophy.
Transcendentalism was

The triumph of feeling and intuition over reason, the exaltation of the individual over society, the impatience at any kind of restraint or bondage to custom, the new and thrilling delight in nature (Horton and Edwards 116)
How are the ideas and imagery of Wordsworth's "The Tables Turned" reflected in "The American Scholar" and Nature ? What is an English Romantic poet doing in an American essayist's work?
How could Transcendentalism be considered part of the reform movements that were so popular in antebellum society? Another way of answering this question is to consider how it promotes reform . . . and what kind of reform is it promoting? Quotes and explanation please.
How, according to Emerson, do you become an "American Scholar"? What, again according to Emerson, should "American Scholars" strive to attain? (Note -- there is more than one answer for each of these)
In "The American Scholar" Emerson notes that "One must be an inventor to read well" (1142). Why does he believe this is so? What other ideas in the essay does this reflect? (supply quotes).

Group Questions #2

"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages" (1163). How does this line, from "Self-Reliance," connect to "The American Scholar" and Nature ? Direct quotes and explanation of connection please.
Emerson, in the essay "Compensation," writes "[. . .] dualism underlies that nature and condition of man Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good"* (139 Norton edition). What does he mean by this "dualism"? Find reflections of this idea in the essay's of his that we've read (you can check 244-45, 271ish, 284ish) as well as other places How is this idea illustrated in his poem "Brahma"?
In "Self-Reliance" Emerson warns that "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" (274). What does he mean? How does it fit into the idea of trusting your own intellect, which is the overall idea of the essay?.
Why is Geikie so afraid of Emerson? Name at least two of Emerson's ideas that Geikie objects to?
Connect two quotes from the "Voices from the Past" below to any of our readings on Emerson.

Images From the Past

Caricature of Emerson's "transparent eyeball"
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Houghton_MS_Am_1506_%284%29_-_Cranch.jpg/800px-Houghton_MS_Am_1506_%284%29_-_Cranch.jpg

Links

There's quite a few online sites on Emerson: one good one is maintained by at Brandeis University.

Consider the Digital Emerson Archive as well.

What happens when you take a chemically induced short cut to become a transparent eyeball? Follow this link to find out.

Quotes from Critics

Transcendentalism is a "somewhat late and localized manifestation of the European romantic movement. The triumph of feeling and intuition over reason, the exaltation of the individual over society, the impatience at any kind of restraint or bondage to custom, the new and thrilling delight in nature" (Horton and Edwards 116)

Sources: neo-Platonism, German idealist philosophy, and Eastern mystical writings : "From the first comes the belief in the importance of spirit over matter, and an ascending hierarchy of spiritual values rising to absolute Good, Truth, and Beauty. From the second, ...came the emphasis on intuition as opposed to intellect as a means of piercing to the real essence of things; while the last...contributed a kind of fuzzy mysticism that helped to bridge over the weak spots in a tenuous and unsystematic philosophy." (Horton and Edwards 116)

Emerson exhorted "young men to slough off their deadening enslavement to the past, to follow the God within, and to live every moment of life with a strenuousness that rivaled that of the Puritan fathers. At the same time he insisted on the oral nature of the universe, and pointed to nature as the great object lesson proving God's presence everywhere in his creation. It would not be far wrong to say that T. was Calvinism modified by the assumption of the innate goodness of man." (Horton and Edwards 117)

"In addition to the neo-Platonism and the Orientalism...we can detect the 'inner light' of the Quakers, the belief in the divine nature of man as held by the Unitarians, and more than a touch of the antinomianism of Anne Hutchinson." (Horton and Edwards)

Emerson "conceived on an all-pervading unitary spiritual power from which all things emanate, and from which man derives the divine spark of his inner being. Since the Oversoul is by definition good, it follows that the universe is necessarily moral. Nature is the new Bible wherein man may see a thousand times in a day fresh evidences of the harmony and rightness of the world..." (Horton and Edwards 121)

Out Of Panic, Self-Reliance; [Op-Ed]
Harold Bloom. New York Times (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Oct 12, 2008. p. WK.12
Interesting essay which examines the connection between current economics and Emersonian thought

Voices and Images From the Past
From William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Preface to Lyrical Ballads ." This book, Lyrical Ballads (first published in 1798 -- preface added in 1800) is often seen as a touchstone text in English Romanticism.

"For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (163-4)

"What is a poet? To whom does he address himself? And what language is to be expected from him? He is a man speaking to men; a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him" (168)

On the influence of children in Romanticism

From Wordsworth's "My Heart Leaps Up," consider the following quote: "The Child is father of the Man"

And from his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality"

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy
But he
Beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day." (lines 58-77)

(1802) Norton

Godley, John Robert. Letters From America. 2 Vols. London: John Murray, 1844.
British visitor to America
"A strong tendency also exists to prefer German university regulation to ours, that is, mere instruction to instruction joined with moral discipline. . . . The dark side of Germany is the skepticism and rationalism of its literary men; . . . .[97] Here the importation of German rationalism is particularly dangerous, for none of these counteracting principles ["conservative habits of the country. . .submissive religious feelings of the more ignorant classes]; and the spread of Unitarianism, Rationalism, and Pantheism, by which New-England is now overrun, appears very alarming." (Godley 97)

In a footnote, he comments: "To see a God in every star, to people every wood and stream with guardian spirits, is infinitely better than to recognize the existence of neither God nor spirit any where' for in fact it comes to that, those who call themselves Pantheists being, in nine cases out of ten, practically Atheists. Perhaps extremes meet in this case, so that the prevalence of Pantheistic doctrines among the educated classes may be connected with, and lead to, superstition and idolatry among the vulgar." (158)

In a footnote, he comments: "To see a God in every star, to people every wood and stream with guardian spirits, is infinitely better than to recognize the existence of neither God nor spirit any where' for in fact it comes to that, those who call themselves Pantheists being, in nine cases out of ten, practically Atheists. Perhaps extremes meet in this case, so that the prevalence of Pantheistic doctrines among the educated classes may be connected with, and lead to, superstition and idolatry among the vulgar." (158)

The New World. "Transcendentalism" August 8, 1840 (157) rev. of the debut of The Dial
Popular "mammoth" newspaper of the antebellum period.

"As the question is often put to us, what is transcendentalism, we can best convey an answer by quoting the following very luminous and clear definition from what Mr. Alcott modestly calls his `Orphic Sayings'. (157)
`The popular genesis is historical. It is written to sense not to the soul. Two principles, diverse and alien, interchange the Godhead and sway the world by turns. God is dual. Spirit is derivative. Identity halts in diversity. unity is actual merely. The poles of things are not integrated [etc.] From this it is clear as mud what transcendentalism is. Or readers can not fail to be enlightened by so simple an explanation. Seriously: from the tenor of nearly every article in The Dial we infer, that the transcendentalist believe "that each individual soul is a finite portion of, and an emanation from, the infinite spirit . . . "
It is not difficult to see that this is merely a refined sort of Deism, and that it strikes at once at the vital principal of the faith of Christianity." (157)
"The commonest tyro in philosophical history will see the absurdity of the claims of these people to novelty and originality. Their philosophy is merely Platonism revived. Their doctrine, with regard to the soul, is precisely that which was taught by Zeno of Cyprus." (157)

Talcott, Hannah Elizabeth Goodwin. Dr. Howell's Family. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1869.
This novels shows that not all were enamored with Transcendentalism (see also Alcott's "Transcendental Wild Oats" in our textbook)

Stephen confides to a Captain Ashmead about worries about infecting his sister with the metaphysics he learned in college: "I've given Di a world of anxiety with my foggy philosophy and transcendentalism, my thirst for something new, and my lack of purpose. But thanks to father, and Di, and yourself, I can see a rift in the clouds." (276)

"Editors' Table." Godey's Lady's Book Vol. 42 June 1851: 391-392.
Godey's was the woman's magazine of the period.

"A letter from a very earnest searcher after truth, asking a definition of that much-used-and-little-understood-word, `transcendentalism,' reminds us of the remark in on of the English periodicals, viz., that Mrs. Child had given the most intelligible and satisfactory definition the review had ever seen. We subjoin it:--

Transcendentalism -- All who know anything of the different schools of metaphysics are aware that the philosophy of John locke was based on the proposition that all knowledge is received into the soul through the medium of the senses; and thence passes to be judged of an analyzed by the understanding.

The German school of metaphysics, with the celebrated Kant at its head, rejects this proposition as false; it denies that all knowledge is received through he senses, and maintains that the highest, and therefore most universal truths, are revealed within the soul, to a faculty transcending the understanding. This faculty they call pure reason; it being peculiar to them to use that word in contradistinction to the understanding. To this pure reason, which some of their writers call `the God within,' they believe that all perceptions of the good, the true, and the beautiful are revealed, in its unconscious quietude; and that the province of the understanding, with its five handmaids, the senses, is confined merely to external things, such as facts, scientific laws."

Barrett, Benjamin Fiske. Beauty for Ashes; or The Old and the New Doctrine, concerning the state of Infants After Death, Contrasted . New York : D. Appleton and Company, 1855.

Inscribed "Reverend Henry Ward Beecher with the best regards of the Author Brooklyn Feb. 9, 1856 .

"The Old doctrine is a sad one, and consorts only with gloom; while the New doctrine is cheerful, and gladdens the heart with its serene sunshine" (Barrett vi).

"the interest which most men feel in the beautiful, the good, and the true, is often enhanced by contrast with their opposites. Beauty never appears so attractive, as when exhibited along with deformity" (Barrett 9).

The New doctrine is from "Swedenborg" -- a "New Dispensation of Christianity\" (Barrett 10).

"thus, the lot of infants and all of the little children in the spiritual world, is altogether preferable to the lot of those in this world. They are in fare better company, and under far better influences, there than here . . . . Here, the moral atmosphere which our little ones are compelled to breathe, is polluted more or less with the pernicious taint of sin: There, they breathe the healthful and balmy air of heaven" (Barrett 69)

Bushnell, Horace. Christian Nurture . 1861. Rprt. Cleveland, Ohio : The Pilgrim Press, 1994.

His audacious assertion was " That the child is to grow up a Christian, and never know himself as being otherwise " (Bushnell 10) Instead of "In Adam's fall, we sinned all," Bushnell saw the doctrine of original sin as a detriment to a child's understanding of God.