Transcendentalism 1840-1860 Elissa Ku Michael Deo Paulo S Taylor Thomas Rachel Lee Luis Diaz

Objective To understand the historical background that led to Transcendentalism To identify the styles of Transcendentalism To analyze Transcendentalism works

Historical Context Transcendentalism 1840-1860 Conflict over slavery Treatment over Native Americans Reform Movement Lyceum Movement Economic downturns During this time of instability, transcendentalism appealed to audiences

Values and Belief Held that every individual can reach ultimate truths through spiritual intuition, which transcends reason and sensory experience. Belief that all of nature is symbolic of the spirit Walden- “Brute Neighbor” Belief of an optimistic view of the world as good and evil as nonexistent. Anti-Transcendentalism—Nathaniel Hawthorne

Genre and Style Mostly wrote poetries, short-stories, novels, and essays. Wanted to redefine writing to become an American writer Wanted to reform education and society Focus that God can be reached through mediation and nature Intuition is our capacity to know things spontaneously and immediately through our emotions rather than our reasoning abilities Contrasts rational thinking

Continue Genre and Style Spiritual Intuition: the guidance of a spiritual force perceived as the intuition of an individual Rhetorical Devices Used: Imagery: words that appeal to senses Ex: Lines 170-175 “own breast was all torn away…dark carbuncles of the sufferer’s eyes” Metaphor: comparison between two unlike things Ex: Extended metaphor: red and black ants fighting Allusion to God Ex: Line 158 “Fire! For God’s sake fire!”

Significant Authors and Works Ralph Waldo Emerson “Nature” –Essay “Self-Reliance” –Essay “The Apology” –Poem “Fate” –Poem Henry Thoreau Walden- Autobiography “Civil Disobedience”-Essay Father of Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson

Self-Reliance -Ralph Waldo Emerson Highlighted Passage Self-Reliance -Ralph Waldo Emerson There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to til.

The Fate –Ralph Waldo Emerson Guided Practice The Fate –Ralph Waldo Emerson Deep in the man sits fast his fate To mould his fortunes, mean or great: Unknown to Cromwell as to me Was Cromwell's measure or degree; Unknown to him as to his horse, If he than his groom be better or worse. He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs, With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares, Till late he learned, through doubt and fear, Broad England harbored not his peer: Obeying time, the last to own The Genius from its cloudy throne. For the prevision is allied Unto the thing so signified; Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same Genius that creates.

The Apology –Ralph Waldo Emerson Think me not unkind and rude   That I walk alone in grove and glen;   I go to the god of the wood   To fetch his word to men.    Tax not my sloth that I   Fold my arms beside the brook;   Each cloud that floated in the sky   Writes a letter in my book.    Chide me not, laborious band,   For the idle flowers I brought;   Every aster in my hand   Goes home loaded with a thought.    There was never mystery   But 'tis figured in the flowers;   Was never secret history   But birds tell it in the bowers.    One harvest from thy field   Homeward brought the oxen strong;   A second crop thine acres yield,   Which I gather in a song.    Write a paragraph about the poem including two major points of transcendentalism style and definition. It would be graded on a 3 point scale.

Recommended Websites and Textbook Passages Orange Literature Book Overview of Transcendentalism pg 206-209 Ralph Waldo Emerson pg 238-247 Henry David Thoreau pg 252-273 http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/