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Published byEdward Richards Modified over 9 years ago
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We will walk with our own feet we will work with our own hands we will speak our own minds -Ralph Waldo Emerson 1800 - 1860 Transcendentalism
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“Great men are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Journal
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What was transcendentalism? In short, it was a philosophical/ literary movement of the early nineteenth century, advocated/initiated by literary greats such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and the Fireside Poets, to name a few.
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Transcendentalism Transcendentalists were well educated people who lived in the decades before the American Civil War. These people, mostly residing near Boston, were attempting to create a ‘uniquely American’ body of literature. Americans had won independence from England several decades before this time. It was time for literary independence– to create work clearly different from anything European.
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Facts… Believed that everything in the world was a reflection of the “divine” soul The physical world/ environment was a doorway to the spiritual world Used intuition as a guide or a roadmap for life A person is his/her own best authority
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More… Believed in human perfection and strived to achieve it by: –Improving own lives and assisting in others’ lives (reform movements) –Established Utopian communities (Brook Farm, 1841) –Instigated social change—abolitionism
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Review Explain the difference between Dark Romanticism (Gothic Fiction) and Transcendentalism Compare to other movements—like Puritanism
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