1. Transcendentalism: an Introduction 11 th Grade American Literature Mrs. Rollins

2. What is transcendentalism? A philosophical, literary, and theological movement that emerged in the early 19 th century.

3. Who? The Big Three: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller Others: Amos Bronson Alcott, William Ellery Channing, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clark, Charles Anderson Dana, John Sullivan Dwight, Sophia Peabody- Hawthorne, Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, and others…

4. When? Where? Why? 19 th Century New England Slavery advancing, Native Americans being massacred, forests being cut down, United States at war with Mexico. Industrial Revolution (replacement of manual labor with machines). Transcendentalists saw the United States growing and changing quickly. Although many thought that the changes were good, transcendentalists did not…

5. The Philosophy… In opposition to professors at Harvard College, who taught that the only way to know anything was through the physical senses— sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—and to think logically about the “facts” gained through the senses, transcendentalists believed that people are born knowing what is good. Society leads us away from our knowledge of “the good.”

6. To Transcend Means…. TO GO BEYOND. Transcendentalists held that the basic truths of the universe lie beyond the knowledge we obtain from our senses, reason, logic, or laws of science. We learn these truths through our INTUITION, our “DIVINE INTELLECT,” the little piece of God in each of us.

7. Transcendentalist Beliefs… THE OVERSOUL—God, humanity, and Nature are all spiritually united because they share a universal soul that permeates all being. All knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. Truth lies within each of us. Seek the truth by knowing oneself. Man and Nature are inherently good and divine. Through contact with Nature, we achieve knowledge of self and creation. The natural world is symbolic of the spirit world (God), and therefore is a living mystery, full of signs. Ordinary things contain extraordinary truths. Society is the source of corruptive, distracting materialism (concern with physical world rather than the spiritual)

8. The Importance of NATURE To the Transcendentalists, Nature was a reflection of the Oversoul and the way to communicate with the Oversoul. Through contemplating Nature, man frees himself from corruptive materialism of society. Left in state of nature, human beings seek “the good.” The external is united with the internal, so “knowing yourself” and “studying nature”; nature mirrors our psyche. Contemplation of Nature enables Man to “pop his cork” and become one with God.

9. Bottle in the Ocean Metaphor