1. Choose one of the following quotes you feel best reflects you or speaks to you. In your notebook, take a few minutes and address your connection to the quote. “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide…” “Trust thyself…” “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think…” “…to be great is to be misunderstood”

2. Transcendentalism-Thoreau Read pages 383-386. Page 383, begin “I went to the woods…” Page 386, stop after, “Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.” As you read, take note of Thoreau’s experience. What does Thoreau hope to accomplish in the woods? What are points Thoreau makes about why it is necessary to go into the woods, and what must be done to make it possible? Why does Thoreau leave? What are two key things Thoreau learned from his experiment?

3. “It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, always do what you are afraid to do.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. Transcendentalism A philosophy that asserts the primacy of the spiritual and transcendental over the material and observed. A literary movement in the 1830’s that established a clear “American voice”. Began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time. Emerson first expressed his philosophy in his essay “Nature.” A belief in a higher reality than that achieved by human reasoning. Suggests that every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth through intuition.

5. Transcendentalism is based on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that principles should be based on "practical reason,” or only upon things about which reason (intellect) can tell us.

6. Beliefs Romanticism Focused on emotion Idealistic Change Faith in inner experience Youthful, innocent Looks to wisdom of the past Unspoiled nature Values inner feeling, intuition Depends on imagination Inspired by nature, supernatural Change, freedom, spontaneity Transcendentalist Includes all of the Romantic beliefs plus the following: “Goes beyond” reason and sensory experience Human senses are limited; convey knowledge of physical world; every individual can discover ultimate truth through spiritual intuition God is present in all Nature including humans Everyone can know God through the use of intuition God, nature, and humanity are united in a shared universal soul, or Over-Soul

8. Unlike Puritans, they saw humans and nature as possessing an innate goodness. “In the faces of men and women, I see God” -Walt Whitman Opposed strict ritualism and dogma of established religion.

10. Transcendentalism: The tenets: Believed in living close to nature/importance of nature. Nature is the source of truth and inspiration. Taught the dignity of manual labor Advocated self-trust/confidence Valued individuality/non-conformity/free thought Advocated self-reliance/ simplicity

13. The first transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Margaret Fuller Bronson Alcott

14. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 Son of a Unitarian minister 7- father died 14- entered Harvard (began journal that he kept all his life) Harvard Divinity School= Pastor Wife died- resigned after 3 years; went to Europe Settled in Concord and remarried; lived on first wife’s money Started writing professionally and is Transcendentalism. A small group of people would meet and discuss transcendental ideas at his house deeming it the “Athens of America” 1841- first national fame with Essays “I am born a poet of a low class without doubt, yet a poet. That is my nature and my vocation.”

15. Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 Eccentric, rarely followed rules Harvard- wore green coat instead of a black coat Became fascinated by Emerson’s transcendentalist ideas Simplified his life and dedicated it to exploring and writing about the spiritual relationship between humanity and nature 1845-1847- lived in a cabin on Walden Pond Spent a night in jail after refusing to pay taxes he felt were being used to fight the Mexican-American War. Was a dedicated abolitionist and helped many slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad. 54 died of TB; not critically successful, but spiritually fulfilled

16. “Self-reliance” -Emerson “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide…” “Trust thyself…” “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think…” “…to be great is to be misunderstood”

18. “Nature” “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.”

19. The Walden Experiment Thoreau began “essential” living Built a cabin on land owned to Emerson in Concord, Mass. near Walden Pond Lived alone there for two years studying nature and seeking truth within himself

21. “I went into 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 has to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

22. “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

23. “Still we live meanly like ants.” “Our life is frittered away by detail.” “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?” “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a thousand.”

25. Individuality “How deep the ruts of tradition and conformity.”

27. “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 he hears, however measured or far away.”

28. Conformity vs. Nonconformity Is there truth to the statement that one must learn to follow the beat of his own drum? Is there ever a time when conformity is necessary? When and why?

29. “Civil Disobedience” Thoreau’s essay urging passive, non-violent resistance to governmental policies to which an individual is morally opposed. Influenced individuals such a Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez

30. “[If injustice] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be the friction to stop the machine.”