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Introduction 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:
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 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. 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
"The American Scholar" (1135) [1837]
Self Reliance
Group Questions #1
Group Questions #2
Caricature of Emerson's "transparent eyeball" 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. 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] Voices and Images From the Past "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: (1802) Norton Godley, John Robert. Letters From America. 2 Vols. London: John Murray, 1844. The New World. "Transcendentalism" August 8, 1840 (157) rev. of the debut of The Dial
Talcott, Hannah Elizabeth Goodwin. Dr. Howell's Family. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1869. "Editors' Table." Godey's Lady's Book Vol. 42 June 1851: 391-392. "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.
© 2009 David Bordelon
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