1. American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM

2. Tension leading to Civil War Slavery
American History
Tension leading to Civil War
Slavery
Westward expansion—railroads, telegraph
Mexican War (1848)
Industrialization

3. Increased roles of gov’t, increase in industrial productivity
American Mind-Set
Increased roles of gov’t, increase in industrial productivity
Technology and science will bring better times

4. Romanticism Nature is the key to self-awareness
If you open yourself up to nature, you man receive its gifts: a deeper, more mystical experience of life
Nature offers a kind of “grace” – “salvation” from mundane evils of everyday life.

5. Transcendentalism
Belief that humans can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses and of logic to a plane of “higher truths”.

6. Valued spirituality (direct access to a benevolent God, not organized religion or ritual

7. Basic Principles of Transcendentalism
1) The fundamental truths of being and the universe lie beyond the senses and can only be understood through intuition.

8. 2) The focus is on the human spirit and the spiritual relationship between humanity and nature.

9. 3) Nature is a manifestation of the human spirit
3) Nature is a manifestation of the human spirit. The meaning of existence can be found through exploring nature.

10. 4) All forms of being – God, nature, man – are spiritually united under a shared universal soul – the Over-Soul.

11. To Review…Transcendentalists…
A deep faith in human potential
Believed that all forms of being are spiritually united through a shared universal soul
Popular themes in their writing include love and nature
Known for their essays expressing their ideas and beliefs

12. Anti-transcendentalists
Believed that the truths of human existence tend to be elusive and disturbing

13. Transcendentalism
Basic truths of the universe lie beyond the knowledge we obtain from the senses.

14. Use intuition to find existence of our own souls
Transcendentalism
Use intuition to find existence of our own souls

15. Ability to experience God firsthand
Emphasize spiritual unity with all forms of being (humans, nature and God)

16. Everything shares a universal soul (oversoul)
The Oversoul
Everything shares a universal soul (oversoul)
Giant Eyeball in the sky

17. Study nature as means to self-knowledge

18. Who?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau

19. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau: Two Writers Who Changed America

20. Emerson and Thoreau
Transcendentalists (the power of the imagination!!)
Essay writers (non-fiction)
Influence American culture
self-reliance
peaceful protest
love of nature

21. Emerson and Thoreau encouraged us to…
Think for ourselves
Do our own thing
Protest injustices
Change unjust laws
Admire the natural beauty of our country

22. Emerson background 1803-1882 Father of Transcendentalism
Harvard educated-minister
Moves away from religion
His son dies at age 5
Writes essays

23. Emerson Your duty is to yourself FIRST, community/country second
You need to be self-reliant…pick yourself up.
Your imagination more powerful than a book

24. Henry David Thoreau Emerson’s friend, student
Civil Disobedience
Walden

25. Thoreau Lived what Emerson preached 1817-1862 Social activist
Two major works:
Civil Disobedience, Walden

26. Civil Disobedience
Refuse to follow any rule that goes against your belief
Do not get violent, get quiet
Protest civilly…sit down, refuse to move

27. Civil Disobedience: influences
Gandhi:
Led a revolution against Great Britain without shooting a gun, or raising a fist.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Led a revolution against racial discrimination without shooting a gun, raising a fist.

28. Walden

29. Thoreau our first naturalist!
Emerson taught him to be self-reliant…he does this by going into the woods, building his own house and living for 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks
Writes about his experience in WALDEN
Reminds us that nature is best teacher

30. Famous Quotes from Emerson and Thoreau…

31. “Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist”
Self-Reliance
“Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist”

32. “Imitation is suicide”
Self-Reliance
“Imitation is suicide”

33. Self-Reliance
“Trust thyself”

34. “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think”
Self-Reliance
“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think”

35. “To be great is to be misunderstood”
Self-Reliance
“To be great is to be misunderstood”

36. Self-Reliance
“Envy is Ignorance”

37. Civil Disobedience
“Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

38. Civil Disobedience
“Let you life be a counter-friction to stop the machine”

39. Civil Disobedience
“A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight”

40. Walden
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately…

41. to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach…

42. and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived.”

43. “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”