American Transcendentalism (and other American authors during Antebellum America) O Me, O Life

What is Transcendentalism?

There is no specific definition of transcendentalism!

Transcendentalism was and remains integral to the energy of being American: rebellious and individualistic

The transcendentalist writers were rebels who expressed new ideas and new ways of writing on a whole spectrum of principles.

Characteristics of Transcendentalism

freethinking

self reliance and non conformity

growth and renewal of the individual

revolt against tradition and established institutions

civil disobedience

brotherhood of man

nature and spiritual unity

and educational reform

The three major transcendental authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Ralph Waldo Emerson Major works: Self Reliance Nature Experience

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… The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents… Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string… Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude…. A man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.

Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that, with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, — the permitted side.

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them… A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

1. What prevents man from being himself, from “trusting thyself”. 2 1. What prevents man from being himself, from “trusting thyself”? 2. Explain “to be great is to be misunderstood.

Henry David Thoreau Major works: Walden Resistance to Civil Government (On Civil Disobedience)

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours… I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.… Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth…

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone…Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star…. Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new…. I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads… Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads…. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality…

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail. 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 which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer?

1. Why did Thoreau go to the woods. 2 1. Why did Thoreau go to the woods? 2. What did Thoreau mean when he said he wanted to “suck the marrow out of life”? 3. Why does Thoreau “love to be alone?” 4. What does the following mean: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”?

Walt Whitman Major works: Leaves of Grass Democratic Vistas

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”

“Are you the new person drawn toward me “Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning - I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?”

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes?

“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained; I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition; They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God; Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things; Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago; Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.”

“O, while I live, to be the ruler of life—not a slave,  To meet life as a powerful conqueror,… proving my interior Soul impregnable, And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me. O joy of suffering!  To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies undaunted!  To be entirely alone with them! to find how much one can stand!  To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face!  To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!  To be indeed a God!”

“O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys “O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!  To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,  To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,  A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)  A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words—full of joys.”

“O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.”

I am too not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

1. Explain the line, “Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion”? 2. Why could Whitman “turn and live with animals”? 3. What does Whitman mean when he says “to be indeed a God”? 4. Explain the “Answer” in O Me, O Life.

1) What are the common themes in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, & Whitman. Provide examples & explain. 2) Identify characteristics of American transcendentalism in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, & Whitman.