2. American Romanticism - Renaissance “…that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is at the center of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events.”

3. Ideologies of the Romantics: Values feeling and intuition over reason Places faith in inner experience and the power of imagination Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature

4. Transcendentalism – Intuition as a central means of unde3rstanding reality. Emphasizes God in nature. We can arrive at truth by communing with the beauty and goodness of nature.Transcendentalism – Intuition as a central means of unde3rstanding reality. Emphasizes God in nature. We can arrive at truth by communing with the beauty and goodness of nature. Perfect Whole – the part to the whole The Oversoul Transparent eyeball Solitude Part and parcel with God

5. Ralph Waldo Emerson “Self-Reliance” Nature “Each and All” “For non-conformity, the world whips you with its displeasure.” “To be great is to be misunderstood.” “Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of your principles.”

7. “ I Yield Myself to the Perfect Whole”

8. Characteristic Authors Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Nathaniel Hawthorne Herman Melville Edgar Allan Poe Emily Dickinson Walt Whitman

9. Henry David Thoreau Walden “Resistance to Civil Government” Walden The purpose of Walden is to force his readers to evaluate the way they have been living and thinking. Employs fables and allegories

10. ` Re-evaluate every institution from Christianity to slavery Walden is a book on how to live wisely Parable of all experience His journals became a literary form

11. Famous Quotes by Thoreau “That government is best which governs not at all.” “…if [the law] causes you to be an agent of injustice to another, I say, break the law! The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

12. Emerson’s greatest challenge to contemporary thought may be his view of evolution as a purposeful natural process—an idea vehemently rejected today. He argues that evolution harbors its own divine spirit and, therefore, that the universe is bursting with meaning. In his own time, Emerson was accused of being a pantheist, or a believer in the idea that nature is God, but that accusation misses its mark. For Emerson, nature is not God but the body of God’s soul—"nature," he writes, is "mind precipitated." Emerson feels that to fully realize one’s role in this respect is to be in paradise. He ends "Nature" with these words:

13. Nature "Every moment instructs, and every object; for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence until after a long time."

14. Paradox – Linking seemingly contradictory elements “I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody is with me.” “But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.”