1. Tuesday, April 5 Short notes on Transcendentalism
Overview and summary of “The American Scholar” by Emerson
Discussion questions
Group discussion
No homework

2. Romanticism  Transcendentalism
Transcendental movement may be described as a slightly later, American outgrowth of romanticism.
Rooted in Kant’s belief that “all knowledge is transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects”
Romanticism  feeling, individual perception
German idealism and optimism
Hindu thought

3. Emerson’s Definition
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836) "Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God" (996).

4. Transcendentalism – 1835ish to 1850ish
Belief in an ideal spiritually that “transcends” the physical and is realized through the individual’s intuition.
Search for truth.
Transcendentalism is a group of ideas in literature and philosophy that developed in the 1830s and '40s as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among transcendentalists' core beliefs was the belief in an ideal spirituality that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.
It strove to deal with "an order of truths which transcends the sphere of the external senses," as George Ripley, a leading exponent, explained. That is, truth is to be found not in the deceptive, ever-perishing surface of things - what our eyes look at and our ears hear each passing day - but rather in something behind that shifting surface, some lasting something that only the soul can intuit. Truth is to be discovered there, in what is the true Reality, in the spiritual, the eternal; and a meaningful life sets out to dwell with that truth.

5. Transcendental Club
The club was a meeting-place for these young thinkers and an organizing ground for their idealist frustration with the general state of American culture and society at the time.
Transcendentalism's “Flowers”
Utopianism
Socialism
Women’s rights
“free love”
Abolitionism
Environmentalism
On September 8, 1836, the day before the publication of Nature, Emerson met with Henry Hedge, George Putnam and George Ripley to plan periodic gatherings of other like-minded intellectuals.[58] This was the beginning of the Transcendental Club, which served as a center for the movement. Its first official meeting was held on September 19, 1836.[59] On September 1, 1837, women attended a meeting of the Transcendental Club for the first time. Emerson invited Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Hoar and Sarah Ripley for dinner at his home before the meeting to ensure that they would be present for the evening get-together.[60] Fuller would prove to be an important figure in Transcendentalism.
In 1837, Emerson befriended Henry David Thoreau. Though they had likely met as early as 1835, in the fall of 1837, Emerson asked Thoreau, "Do you keep a journal?" The question went on to have a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau.[66] Emerson's own journal comes to 16 large volumes, in the definitive Harvard University Press edition published between 1960 and Some scholars consider the journal to be Emerson's key literary work

6. Henry David Thoreau
Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings
Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government
"I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government”
“That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."
He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Though Civil Disobedience seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government – "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government"[3] – the direction of this improvement points toward anarchism: "'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."

7. Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882 Champion of individualism.
Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for man to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world.
Philosophy of Transcendentalism discussed in his 1836 essay, Nature.
A year later, on August 31, 1837, Emerson delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, "The American Scholar”.
He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature.
- Emerson anonymously published his first essay, Nature, on September 9, A year later, on August 31, 1837, Emerson delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa address, "The American Scholar",[61] then known as "An Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge"; it was renamed for a collection of essays (which included the first general publication of "Nature") in 1849.[62] Friends urged him to publish the talk, and he did so, at his own expense, in an edition of 500 copies, which sold out in a month.[1]

8. Emerson's 1820 journal, written while at Harvard.
In October 1817, at 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty.[10] Midway through his junior year, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read and started a journal in a series of notebooks that would be called "Wide World".[11] He took outside jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and as an occasional teacher working with his uncle Samuel in Waltham, Massachusetts.[12] By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Waldo.[13] Emerson served as Class Poet; as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821, when he was 18.[14] He did not stand out as a student and graduated in the exact middle of his class of 59 people.[15]

9. “The American Scholar”
At the time, women were barred from higher education, and scholarship was reserved exclusively for men.
America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence”.
Emerson urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe.
A student at Harvard called it, "an event without former parallel”.
Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce, called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address”.
Following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence".[1] Considered one of the great lecturers of the time, Emerson had an enthusiasm and respect for his audience that enraptured crowds.
In the speech, Emerson declared literary independence in the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe.[63] James Russell Lowell, who was a student at Harvard at the time, called it "an event without former parallel on our literary annals".[64] Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce, called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible address".[65]
Emerson wrote in his speech "The American Scholar": "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; Divine Soul which also inspires all men." Emerson closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the new idealist philosophy:
So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

10. “The American Scholar” 1837
The text begins with an introduction (paragraphs 1-6) in which Emerson explains that his intent is to explore the scholar as one function of the whole human being: The scholar is "Man Thinking."
The remainder of the essay is organized into four sections:
The influence of nature (paragraphs 7 and 8)
The influence of the past and books (paragraphs 9 -18)
The influence of action on the education of the thinking man (paragraphs 19-27)
In the last section (paragraphs 28-41), Emerson considers the duties of the scholar and then discusses his views of America in his own time.
Emerson uses Transcendentalist and romantic views to get his points across by explaining a true American scholar's relationship to nature
We are all fragments, "as the hand is divided into fingers", of a greater creature, which is mankind itself, "a doctrine ever new and sublime".
To achieve this higher state of mind, the modern American scholar must reject old ideas and think for him or herself, to become "Man Thinking" rather than "a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking", "the victim of society", "the sluggard intellect of this continent".
"The American Scholar" has an obligation, as "Man Thinking", within this "One Man" concept, to see the world clearly, not severely influenced by traditional/historical views, and to broaden his understanding of the world from fresh eyes, to "defer never to the popular cry."
An individual may live in either of two states. In one, the busy, "divided" or "degenerate" state, he does not "possess himself" but identifies with his occupation or a monotonous action; in the other, "right" state, he is elevated to "Man", at one with all mankind.
The scholar's education consists of three pursuits:
To investigate and to understand nature, which includes the scholar's own mind and person.
To study the "mind of the past": to read literature, to observe art, to study institutions.
To take action and to interact with the world; not to become the recluse thinker commenting from afar.
"The office [the duty] of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances."

11. Number the paragraphs of the essay 1-41
Page 1 -1 to 6
Page 2 – 6 to 11
Page 3 – 11 to 16
Page 4 – 16 to 21
Page 5 – 21 to 27
Page 6 – 27 to 29
Page 7 – 30 to 33
Page 8 – 33 to 99
Page 9 – 40 and 41

12. Discussion Activity
I will assign you an example of Transcendentalism to focus on (from the chart handout).
Find quotes and examples and provide explanations.
After you have finished step 1, answer the questions on the handout.
Cite examples using page and paragraph #
Turn in one handout per group (make sure all group member names are on it). Please get into groups of 3 – 4.

13. Discussion of “The American Scholar”
You will lead the discussion for your group’s assigned questions.
Everyone should participate in the discussion, even if it’s not your group’s assigned question.