Think about the times you’ve spent alone outside in nature. Journal Prompt Think about the times you’ve spent alone outside in nature. Describe what that was like. Do you re-connect with yourself? Do you have clarity of thought? What things do you think about ? How often do you practice self-relfection?

PERIOD BETWEEN 1830 AND 1850 IN THE NORTH -- ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGES Industrialization Urbanization Factories with poor working conditions, wage labor, first unions A new breed of materialism IN THE SOUTH -- old, almost feudal social order (a few extremely wealthy plantation owners ruled)

HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT Presidency of ANDREW JACKSON Period marked by TERRITORIAL EXPANSION, growing NATIONAL SELF-AWARENESS, and increasing POLITICAL, SOCIAL and REGIONAL POLARIZATION The addition of territory through war with Mexico -- inflamed slavery/antislavery tensions

TRANSCENDENTALISM Religious, philosophical and literary movement 1830s – 1850s Mostly New Englanders (mainly around Boston, Cambridge and Concord, Massachusetts) Wanted to create American literary independence (authentic American literature)

The TRANSCENDENT is the fundamental reality The ultimate truth transcends the physical world Transcendentalists were not a cohesive organized group Ralph Waldo EMERSON, Henry David THOREAU, Walt WHITMAN, Amos Bronson ALCOTT, Martin VAN BURREN, Margaret FULLER

The more PESSIMISTIC stream of American Romanticists (should be differentiated from the Transcendentalists) Edgar Allan POE, Herman MELVILLE, Nathaniel HAWTHORNE, Henry Wadsworth LONGFELLOW Transcendentalism, on the other hand, incorporated the Romantic emphasis on the individual and the Unitarian belief in the goodness and perfectibility of man.

Transcendentalism was more of a call to action than a precise, logical line of thought. It urged people to break free of the customs and traditions of the past and to listen to the spirit of God inside them Most of the transcendentalists became involved in SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENTS (anti-slavery, women's suffrage, Native American education and rights, world peace)

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803 – 1882)

“SELF-RELIANCE” The need for each man to think for himself, not to give up their freedom as individuals to constricting beliefs and customs, to common values, to established institutions Importance of an individual’s resisting pressure to conform to external norms

He refuses to support morality through donations to organizations rather than directly to individuals It makes no difference to him whether his actions are praised or ignored. The important thing is to act independently The self-reliant individual should be able to live in the world and improve it, not be just another product of it.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817 – 1862)

“CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE” Having developed the image of the government as a machine that may or may not do enough good to counterbalance what evil it commits, he urges rebellion. The opponents of reform, he recognizes, are not faraway politicians but ordinary people who cooperate with the system. Although Thoreau asserts that a man has other, higher duties than eradicating institutional wrong, he must at least not be guilty through compliance. The individual must not support the structure of government, must act with principle, must break the law if necessary.

WALDEN He points out the forces that dull and subjugate the inner man, materialism and constant labor in particular. The reform of society rests within the individual. Each man is a microcosm. If he works at improving himself, he reforms the world more effectively than can any philanthropic scheme or organization.

POSSESSIONS COMPLICATE LIFE Thoreau emphasizes the crushing, numbing effect of materialism and commercialism on the individual’s life. Property ownership and technological progress consume men before they have a chance to consider how they might live. The author encourages his contemporaries to be content with less materially. To Thoreau, the cost of something is not so much its actual cost in dollars and cents, but the amount of life that must be exchanged for it.

Key Thoughts of Transcendentalism Each person has individual powers and individual responsibilities in society and must stand up for what he believes in. Ultimate source of truth lies within ourselves Human spirit is reflected in nature All forms of being – God, man, nature – are all united in a shared universal soul, called the Oversoul.

(cont.) Self-reliance outweighs external authority and blind conformity. Intuition and emotion is far superior to intellectual knowledge

Individualism Quotes

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.” Henry David Thoreau

“Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about “Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about.” Oscar Wilde

“Life is what happens to you when you’re planning for the future.”

Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life. Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates

“Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide” “To be great is to be misunderstood.” Ralph Waldo Emerson