1. The American Renaissance & Transcendentalism 1835-1880

2. The American Renaissance  Also known as: The Flowering of New England America’s Golden Day

3. The American Renaissance  Characterized by the flowering of our nation’s thought in: literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture and music

4. Key Players of the American Renaissance  Ralph Waldo Emerson  Henry David Thoreau  Nathanial Hawthorne  Margaret Fuller  Bronson Alcott  Herman Melville  Walt Whitman  Emily Dickinson

5. Transcendentalism  Ideology Defined by an optimism that proved difficult for some Renaissance writers including Melville and Hawthorne  Attacked the thought but were affected by it nonetheless  Stood at the heart of the American Renaissance  Centered in Boston and Concord, MA

6.  Emerson kick started this spirit of Transcendentalism with his Harvard Divinity School Address (1873) in which he said: “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 who also inspires all men.”

7. Definitions  Transcendental -Knowing without experience -intuitive knowledge and reality  Existential Based on experience empirical

8. Transcendentalism, cont.  Emerson tried to define transcendentalism simply as “Idealism”—but the definition runs much deeper.  It is a COLLECTION OF BELIEFS

9. Transcendentalists Believe…  1. The spark of divinity lies within man  2. Everything in the world is a microcosm of existence  3. The individual soul is identical to the World Soul. (Emerson referred to it as the “Over Soul”)  4. There is an Inner Light  5. That by meditation, by communing with nature, through work and art, man can transcend his senses and attain an understanding of beauty, goodness, and truth.

10. Influences  Transcendentalists were influenced by: German and English Romanticism (Romanticism: A movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism of the previous centuries...The German poet Friedrich Schlegel, who is given credit for first using the term romantic to describe literature, defined it as "literature depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form.“)  Source: Cuddon, J.A. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Third Ed. London: Penguin Books, 1991.  German philosophers: Fichte & Herder  German Romantic Poets: Goethe, Novalis, Jean-Paul Heine  English Romantic Poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats

11. Transcendentalism—its influence today  Transcendentalist writings and art continue to affect 20 th century writers.  It continues to reverberate through American life with messages of: Confident self identity Spiritual progress Social justice Aesthetics  All are a celebration of the grandeur of the American Soul

12. A (very) Little Bit of History  1600s: Religious debates in the 1 st settlements

13. A little bit more history…  1700s: Age of Enlightenment Challenge to dominance of Puritanism Puritanism in the colonies was eventually displaced by Unitarianism  Unitarianism: The belief in a Unitarian God and that there is basic goodness in the individual :  3 core beliefs:  Belief in one god  Disbelief in original sin  Disbelief in determinism (opposite of free will)

14. Ralph Waldo Emerson  Went to Harvard Divinity School  Became a Unitarian Minister  Resigned his ministry in 1832 because he found Unitarian beliefs to be too restrictive  He did not, however, abandon all Unitarian beliefs—he retained some as he sought out a philosophy in which to base his faith

15. Ralph Waldo Emerson, cont.  Credited with “discovering” transcendentalism  He eventually defined transcendentalism as “a belief that the spiritual reality rather than the material world is the ultimate reality”  Therefore, Emerson believed that reality could not be known by logic of rational faculty, but rather by intuition or mystical insight—a higher power he believed was open to all people.

16. Transcendentalism  A philosophy of self-reliance and individualism  Both qualities are traits treasured by American Frontier Society

17. Transcendentalists & Utopia  Transcendentalists believed in the idea of Utopia  In 1841 the Transcendentalist Club founded Brook Farm, a utopian society of communal living—all shared in the work, and in the profits  Two members left disillusioned—Nathanial Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller.  Hawthorne wrote about his experience at Brook Farm in The Blithedale Romance Hawthorne said: “No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity, if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning into the settle system of things.”

18. Three Big Issues  There were three major issues during the time of transcendentalism: 1. Women’s Rights 2. Governmental indifference toward Native Americans 3. Slavery—This was the number 1 issue of the era, and abolishing slavery was a top priority of transcendentalists. WHY??

19. Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience  Essay on his experience in jail for refusing to pay his poll tax  A nod to the need to abolish slavery  Civil Disobedience centered on the need for the state to recognize the individual as a “higher and independent power” from which the state’s power and authority is derived

20. Slavery during the American Renaissance: The Effect of Literature on Society  Emerson and Thoreau refused to uphold the fugitive slave law (which said slaves must be returned to their “owners”)  Their refusal eventually led, in part, to the Underground Railroad and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin  Abraham Lincoln credited Uncle Tom’s Cabin with starting the Civil War

21. Emerson vs. Thoreau  Emerson 14 years older “Fountainhead of American Literature” Works are abstract and elusive—hard to follow Considered the Master  Thoreau Lived in Emerson’s household doing odd jobs to earn his keep Read Emerson, considered him an influence Moved to Walden Pond Works are easy to understand—give concrete directions Considered the Disciple HOWEVER…Thoreau’s work is actually more influential in the 20 th Century

22. Hawthorne vs. Melville Neighbors and Friends—Not Really Transcendentalists  Hawthorne Master Masterpiece: The Scarlet Letter  Melville Disciple Masterpiece: Moby Dick: He dedicated it to Hawthorne; novel was of little note in the 20 th century.

23. Hawthorne and Melville cont.  As with Emerson and Thoreau, the disciple (Melville) outdid the master  Both reminded Americans that Puritanism is not dead in the time of Transcendentalism. It may be faded, but not gone  Both men embody in their fiction a Puritanically dark view of human nature and fate.  They were less optimistic than the Transcendentalists.

24. And so we begin…  The unit begins with an independence and individualism that defined this time. The Maxims of Emerson

25.  Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense.  Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.  Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.  My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.  A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.  An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.  Life only avails, not the having lived.  Insist on yourself; never imitate.  The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.