UNIT IV: TRANSCENDENTALISM America’s First Identity Crisis 1840 - 1870 “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” -Emerson.

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Presentation transcript:

UNIT IV: TRANSCENDENTALISM America’s First Identity Crisis “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” -Emerson

Literary Nationalism ( ) : America’s obedient schoolboy years

Literary Nationalism ( )  Established national identity  Heroes (e.g., Natty Bumpo)  Anti-heroes (e.g., Tom Walker)  Local color (regional dialect, setting)  National identity rooted in:  B. Franklin’s Virtues  Puritanism  Democracy

Literary Nationalism ( )  Influenced by European Romanticism Truth in absolutes  Heroes = Idealized; impossibly perfect; extraordinary people in extraordinary situations  Anti-Heroes/Enemies = pure evil Morality, thus, is absolute  All good or all evil; no gray area

Romanticism – The Middle School Years

Romanticism – the Middle School Years  The Romantics’ emphasis on the individual reflects the political ideal set forth in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal.” Ben Franklin’s 13 Virtues serves as a sort of spiritual manual for American heroism.  This new emphasis leads to a new focus on the dignity and worth of the common individual and to social reforms that were meant to fulfill this ideal of equality.

Romanticism – Basic Tenants  an intellectual and artistic movement that placed imagination over realism and reason. It includes  high focus on individuality  Common man  Optimism  Reverence and grandeur in nature  the gothic or supernatural  Emphasis on feeling or emotion instead of logic or reason  Escapism  Regional setting  Common language.

In the 1840’s, America enters its teenage years…  and the country experiences its first identity crisis!  Enter the Transcendentalists – and the beginning of America’s adolescence.  This literary period is often described as a renaissance or rebirth (in comparison to the European Renaissance of the 14th- 16th centuries) because of the cultural development between America’s Identity Crisis

TRANSCENDENTALISM: Origins  Two major national issues came together causing America’s “identity crisis”: 1. Slavery 2. Westward expansion America = half free states / half slave Q: Would new states be slave or free?

Additionally…  Transcendentalism is a response to the Industrial Revolution in New England in the 1830s.  Transcendentalists feared that increasing production in factories meant a decreasing sense of self. Mechanization was dehumanizing  but NATURE was spiritual

TRANSCENDENTALISM: Origins  : movement of writers who began to seriously challenge Am. values Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Nathaniel Hawthorne Herman Melville  Departure from ROMANTICISM (focus on the extraordinary, uncommon, intangible, emotional)  Embracing of REALISM (focus on the ordinary, common, tangible, experiential)

Romanticism --> REALISM  Realism: represents life as it appears to common reader  Captures ordinary people in everyday experiences and settings with almost photographic precision and detail Authors: Mark Twain Edith Wharton John Steinbeck

TRANSCENDENTALISM: What it is  Belief that the transcendent (or spiritual) reality, rather than the material world, is the ultimate reality  mind/spirit > body/society  Transcend: (v.) to go beyond the range or limits of something

TRANSCENDENTALISM: What it is  The transcendental reality can be known not by the rational faculty or logic, but only by intuition or mystical insight Oversoul: a divine spirit that pervades the universe and encompasses all human souls (coined by R.W. Emerson, author)  All people are open to this higher knowledge; it is a philosophy of individualism and self-reliance

TRANSCENDENTALISM: Beliefs…  Americans should simplify life by de- emphasizing materialism and institutions  Material possessions and institutions defined Americans from the outside Culture was disseminated by 4 institutions: 1. Education 2. Family 3. Religion 4. Government Transcendentalists: “No need for this!”  Man is inherently good, so he must trust his own intuition and nature to define his lifestyle (truth is found within us)

TRANSCENDENTALISM: Beliefs  Considered themselves the “Conscience of the Nation”  Challenged individuals to “question authority”  Praised non-conformity  Believed: morality > legality

TRANSCENDENTALISM: Where is truth?  Truth to the transcendentalist = what one wants to find for oneself that has meaning  Believed God is in nature (both physical and intuitive)  Believed truth is found in communion with God (thus, in nature)  Finding one’s own spirituality will lead one to truth  God can’t be found in church God is spiritual, but not ecumenical (belonging to a church)