1. Transcendentalism
(Late 1820s to 1850 or so)

2. Important events & influences during Transcendentalist Period
Slavery & The Civil War
The Mexican-American War
Appreciation for Nature

3. The Hudson River painters and The Luminists
Thomas Cole

4. Another Thomas Cole painting – notice how humans are in harmony with nature

5. Kindred Spirits
By Asher Durand

6. What does “Transcendentalism” mean?
There is an ideal spiritual state which “transcends” (goes beyond) the physical and empirical (what you can know intellectually).
Transcendentalism had different meanings for each person involved in the movement.

7. Defining Characteristics -- What did the Transcendentalists believe?
Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature.
Transcendentalists also believed that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupted the purity of the individual.
They had faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.

8. Basic Beliefs
An individual is the spiritual center of the universe, and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself.
It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual.

9. Cultural Influences
All the transcendentalists worked to end American slavery. (believed in social justice & equality.)
They questioned the morality of some aspects of government. (Thoreau’s famous essay on “Civil Disobedience”; right to protest against government”)
Believed in meditation and communing with nature (environmentalist movement & meditation practices)

10. Who were the some of the important Transcendentalists?

11. Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Father of Transcendentalism” -- the thinker!
Unitarian minister
Poet and essayist
Founded the Transcendental Club
Banned from Harvard for 40 years following his Divinity School address
Supporter of abolitionism

12. Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 Schoolteacher, essayist, poet
The mentee of Emerson – the “doer”
Most famous for Walden and Civil Disobedience
Influenced environmental movement
Supporter of abolitionism

13. Amos Bronson Alcott 1799-1888 Teacher and writer
Founder of Temple School and Fruitlands
Introduced art, music, P.E., nature study, and field trips; banished corporal punishment
Father of novelist Louisa May Alcott

16. Walt Whitman – Focus Poet
-- A poet, essayist & journalist
-- Sometimes referred to as “The Father Of Free Verse”
-- Wrote openly about
death and sexuality
-- Bridged the gap between
Transcendentalism and Realism

17. Walt Whitman poems “O Captain! My Captain!”
“I Sing the Body Electric” (stanzas 1 & 2)
“There Was a Child Went Forth”
“Song of the Open Road”
“Give me the Splendid, Silent Sun”