1. Chapter Four New England Transcendentalism * Emerson * Thoreau
I. New England Transcendentalism
(When? Where? Who? What? How?)
II. Ralph Waldo Emerson
(his major works, his major ideas)
III. Henry David Thoreau

2. Chapter Four I. New England Transcendentalism (1836-1855)
1. Time: :
In 1836, a little book came out which made a tremendous impact on the intellectual life of America. It was entitled Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The New World was thrilled to hear the new voice it uttered. … A whole new way of thinking began to exert its influence on the consciousness of man. Nature’s voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism.
2. Essence: “Transcendentalism is idealism” in essence.
3. Background: Some New Englanders who were not quite happy about the materialistic-oriented life of their time formed themselves into an informal club, the Transcendentalist club, and met to discuss matters of interest to the life of the nation as a whole. They expressed their views, published their journal, the Dial, and made their voice heard

3. I. New England Transcendentalism (1836-1855)
4.Representative figures: some 30 men and a couple of women such as Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and Margaret Fuller, most of them teachers or clergymen, radicals against rigid rationalism of Unitarianism.
5. Major Features:
A. Emphasis on spirit, or Oversoul
omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent
B. the importance of the individual as the most important element of society
The regeneration of the society could only come about through the regeneration of the individual, through his self-perfection, self-culture, self-improvement, self-reliance
C. Nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God
Nature was not purely matter. It was the garment of the Oversoul.

4. I. New England Transcendentalism (1836-1855)
6. The product of a combination of foreign influences and the American Puritan tradition.
German philosophy: Schelling, Fichte, Kant
French Eclecticism: Cousin, Collard, Gerando, Jouffroy
English critics: Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor-Resartus
Coleridge's Aids to Reflection
Oriental mysticism:
Hindu works Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita
Chinese Confucius and Mencius

5. Chapter Four New England Transcendentalism * Emerson
II. Ralph Waldo Emerson ( )
1. Literary Status:
“Father of American Essay”,
The Concord Sage
Leader and spokesman of New England Transcendentalism
Essayist, poet, philosopher, orator, critic
2. Life:
Boston, Massachusetts – a line of New England clergymen – Boston Latin School – Harvard College –rejecting Calvinist tenets – Unitarianism – run a school for young ladies – abandoned a Unitarian minister – tour in Europe – his return to America and second marriage (Lydia) – promulgating Transcendentalism

6. Boston Latin School where Emerson got his early education

7. Harvard University

8. Harvard University Freshmen's dormitory

9. Emerson's Manse

10. Chapter Four Ralph Waldo Emerson
3.His philosophical ideas
A. firm belief in the transcendence of the Oversoul
B. the individual is the most important of all. (the infinitude of man)
C. Nature is emblematic of God, mediating between man and God
4. Aesthetics: (“The Poet” “The American Scholar”)
A. Emerson’s poet is no ordinary person (a complete man, an eternal man to see into the deeps of infinite time – comprehend the path of things and the divine unity of universe by intuition – poet-philosopher)
B. True poetry and true art should ennoble. (moral purification – a passage toward organic unity and higher reality)
C. The argument of the poet should decide the form of the poem instead of traditional techniques.
D. The poet should express his thought in symbols which are universal things.
E. As to theme, Emerson called upon American writers to celebrate America which was to him a long poem itself.

11. Chapter Four Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. His major works:
A. Collections
Poems (1847); Representative Men (1850); English Traits (1856)
The Conduct of Life (1860); May Day and Other Poems (1867)
Society and Solitude (1870); Letters and Social Aims (1876)
B. Essays
"Self-Reliance" "Compensation" "The Over-Soul"
"The Poet" "Experience"
"Nature" (the Bible and manifesto of the New England Transcendentalism)
"The American Scholar" (Intellectual Declaration of Independence)
C. Poems
"Concord Hymn"
"The Rhodora"

12. Chapter Four Henry David Thoreau
III. Henry David Thoreau ( )
1. Literary Status:
The Prophet of Non-Violence Movement
Advocate of New England Transcendentalism
American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, sage writer and philosopher.
2. Life:
pencil-maker’s family – Harvard – a private school – friendship with Emerson – trip on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers in 1839 –a cabin on Walden Pond and moved in on July 4 and lived there for over 2 years since 1845 – a night in jail for a poll-tax of $ 2
Thoreau's Cabin

13. Chapter Four Henry David Thoreau
3. Major Works:
“Civil Disobedience or Resistance to Civil Government” (1849)
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
Walden (1854)
4. Walden, Thoreau’s Masterpiece
A. a great Transcendentalist work and Thoreau’s masterpiece
B. a faithful record of his reflections when he was in solitary communion with nature (the pantheistic quality of nature)
C. a book on self-culture and human perfectability; a book about man, what he is and what he should be and must be.
D. prophet of individualism in American literature – critical of modern civilization which was degrading and enslaving man. “Civilized man is the slave of matter” – a panacea for the fatal modern craze for monetary success in the wake of modern mechanization and commercialization “Simplicity, Simplify”

14. Chapter Four Henry David Thoreau
E. he was impatient with the overstress on the external development of human beings such as railroad, telegraph
F. Regeneration became a major thematic concern of Walden and decided the structural framework: Walden unfolds in a single year, and progresses through summer and autumn to winter, and finally too a climax in the renascence of spring.
G. Walden exhibits Thoreau’s calm trust in the future and his ardent belief in a new generation of men. The book concludes on a clear note of optimism and hope.
5. Men of the like Mind
Thomas Carlyle ( ); John Ruskin ( )
Mathew Arnold ( ); Soren Aabye Kierkegaard ( )

15. The Original Site of Thoreau's Cabin