( 8 ) T r a n s c e n d e n t a l i s m a s t h e F i r s t A m e r i c a n S c h o o l o f T h o u g h t
(Its Origin, Aims, Achievements and Failures, Social Experiments; Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller)
T r a n s c e n d e n t a l i sm ( 1 8 4 0 s )
O r i g i n :
-the society spreads westwards – writers search for the ideals at the frontier
-Boston and the neighbourhood become the centre of intellectuals from Harvard and Cambridge
-young authors dissatisfied with the old patriotism, uninterested in Am.’s power and wealth, and anxious to explore the inner life
-study Gr., Ger., and Ind. philos.
-transcendentalists = a small group of young radical intellectuals, centred in Concord in 1830s – 40s, with the leading personality of R. W. Emerson
-the name: from I. Kant’s ‘transcendental’ philos. they were reported to discuss frequently
-advocated a moral reform: promoted temperance, women’s rights, and abolitionism
-also conc. with relig. controversies of the time (many of them trained for the Unitarian ministry)
-incl. R. W. Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, Elizabeth Peabody, & oth.
-The Dial (1840 – 44): their intellectual miscellany magazine, ed. chiefly by R. W. Emerson and M. Fuller
-inspired 2 experiments in co-operative living and high thinking near Boston: the ‘Brook Farm’ and ‘Fruitlands’ (both 1840s)
-their radical force and quality of social and relig. protest became eventually diluted and dissipated by 1870s and gave way to the Am. Renaissance
I d e a ( l ) s :
-a spiritual, philos., and lit. movement: free thinkers in relig., Kantanian and idealistic in philos., Romantic and individualistic in lit.
-a mystical, idealistic, and individual manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th c.
-orig. in the confrontation of Puritanism with ideas of Eur. romanticism (incl. the Ger. idealistic philos.), culminated in the middle of the 19th c. in New En., and considerably infl. the authors of the Am. Renaissance – H. D. Thoreau, N. Hawthorne, H. Melville, and W. Whitman
-moved from the rational to a spiritual realm, aspired to find the truth through feeling and intuition rather than logic
-concept of God: respected Him, found Him everywhere in man and nature, did not reject the afterlife x but: emphasised this life
-concept of nature:
(a)studying nature = knowing oneself
(b)natural images: a language revealing human soul
(c)nature mirrors one’s psyche
(d)nature = the Bible
M a n i f e st o :
-an individual stands in the spiritual centre of the universe: a clue to nature, history, and cosmos itself can be found in an individual, the world explained in terms of an individual
-all knowledge begins with self-knowledge
-nature remains a living mystery, symbolic, and full of signs
-an individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realisation
R a l p h W a l d o E m e r s o n ( 1 8 0 3 – 8 2 )
L i f e :
-grew up in a family incl. a heritage of 9 successive generations of notable New En. ministers
-enrolled in the Harvard Divinity School
-involved with Unitarianism = rejected the Calvinist legacy of J. Edwards and the Great Awakening, shifted from the individual’s depravity to individual’s moral capabilities
-disapproved the worshipping of ‘the dead forms of our forefathers’ in favour of more intuitive and personally revelatory relig. experience
-resigned his ministry: ‘in order to be a good minister it was necessary to leave the ministry’ > Eur. > Concord (MA)
W o r k :
-generally consid. the chief spokesman for transcendentalism
-an ambitious and dynamic lecturer
-drew the lectures from his extensive journals: commented on the controversies of the time, private and public persons, and his notes on reading
-lectured throughout Am. and En. with an enormous appeal to the average Am. in the 1840s
Religion:
-refused the ceremonies of church in favour of individual firsthand experience of God
-urged the ministers to free themselves from the authority of the church, and to instruct their parishioners ‘to love God without mediator’
-developed this controversial ideas in an address at the Harvard Divinity School, resulted in his condemnation as a heretic
Style:
-his essays display the way his mind actually works: moves from impression to impression, from association to association
-the flow of his texts analogous to the flow of the natural world
-his philos. rather inconsistent x but: E.: ‘to define is to confine’
-achievement: defined the traditional Am. values of self-reliance, individual authority, individual responsibility, resolute optimism, moral idealism, veneration of experience, and worshipful return to nature
-> the work of such divergent figures as W. Whitman, R. Frost, W. C. Williams, G. Stein, F. S. Fitzgerald, W. Cather, & oth
P r o se :
Nature:
-attempts to reject the Old World and build a new one: ‘why should we grope among the dry bones of the past?’
-nature should substitute the new nation’s lack of cultural heritage, and should be the source for the articulation and development of the Am. cultural identity
-nature should replace the Bible as capable of being read by anyone
-differentiates the following modes of nature:
(a)Nature as a commodity: food for our senses
(b)Nature as a standard of Beauty
(c)Nature as a source of language: language derives from natural objects
(d)Nature as a teacher of discipline
“The American Scholar”:
-an address developed at the Harvard Divinity School
-urges to break with the past, look at the present, and concentrate on one’s own experience
-bases his philos. on spontaneous action, creative intuition, self-reliance, and self-trust
-the Am. scholar should be ‘The Man Thinking’ x not parroting oth. men’s thought
-his duties should be to cheer, raise, and guide men by showing them facts among appearances
-offers the remedy for the ‘divided man’ of the modern society:
(a)expose oneself to Nature and restore the unity with it
(b)see oneself in the relation with the oth.: see one’s job in the relation with oth. jobs, be happy for what one does and is [– not only feel the dignity of being a student x but: enjoy being so], and become aware of the globalness of human activities
-offers the following levels of education:
(a)Nature = a ‘transparent eye-ball’: one should study the nature by actively perceiving and experiencing it = to study and learn about oneself
(b)Mind of the Past: one should not only read book and memorise facts x but: should use actively the knowledge from the books, for the scholar’s idle time, for inspiration only
(c)Action: no scholar should lack a heroic mind, each should be aware of the dignity and necessity of labour, and should be creative and inventive
-declares the independence of Am. lit.: celebrated by the foremost critic of the period J. R. Lowell as Am.’s ‘Intellectual Declaration of Independence’
Representative Men
English Traits:
-conc. with Br. culture
-became more empirical and sceptical in his later y.
-devoted his last y. to being ‘the representative American’: wrote movingly about the Emancipation Proclamation and the death of Lincoln
P o e t r y :
-lacks formal perfection x but: not a thought-provoking quality
-attempts a freer style from which a great deal of later modern verse derived
Concord Hymn
May-Day:
-a coll. of poems
H e n r y D a v i d T h o r e a u ( 1 8 1 7 – 6 2 )
L i f e :
-received uni education (Harvard) x but: most appreciated self-education
-acquainted with R. W. Emerson, shortly lived with his family as a handyman
-claimed he never needed to leave the little village of Concord (MA) x but: saw all worth seeing in the world
-claimed that on the miniature scale of the place where one happens to be one may read all worth knowing in life
-isolated himself from the outside world, spent 2 y. as a hermit on the shores of Walden Pond
W o r k :
-preocc. with the life of the spirit
-also conc. with the political and social controversies of the time: the utopian plans for communal living, socialistic societies, the Fugitive Slave Act, John Brown (celebrated him), etc.
-developed public addresses against the materialist society x but: incl. also wit and nature lore
-retained his indifference to style: often crabbed and inartistic
-insisted on the strongest thought, sought to express himself unreservedly and spontaneously x but: brought his bookishness into his narrative (learned allusions)
-wrote esp. journals and essays – “Resistance to Civil Government”
-over his grave R. W. Emerson praised his exceptional character x but: lamented he had failed to be all he should have been
-criticized also by J. R. Lowell & oth.
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers:
-an account of a canoe excursion with his brother
-nature observations, histories of the region, and observations on the clash of nature x human inhabitants
Walden: or, Life in the Woods:
-set out for Walden Pond on the Independence Day = symbolical for his 1st major undertaking as a writer
-mingles common fact x personal experience, the world without x the world within
-resists on the development of the individual in the place where one happens to be, and on the avoidance of all infl. except the common ones of nature
-his philos. often shrewd, strained, and arbitrary x but: the greatest value in his disclosure of the common facts of the world about one
-> “Where I Lived and What I Lived For”, one of the opening explanatory chapters
The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, and A Yankee in Canada:
-accounts of his next trips
M a r g a r e t F u l l e r ( 1 8 1 0 – 5 0)
L i f e :
-a teacher, transl., ed., journalist, lit. and social critic, feminist theorist and advocate, and poet
-received a rigorous education led by her father: studied the Bible, the classics, W. Shakespeare, E lit., modern languages (esp. Ger.), and history
-ed. the Transcendentalist magazine The Dial for 2 y., intended to stimulate the readership to thinking
-initiated the weekly ‘Conversations’ = meetings of women at the Boston home of the teacher Elizabeth Peabody to discuss various topics under F.’s intellectual leadership
-travelled Eur., met lit. men, experienced the rev. in Ita., and converted to socialism
-only in Eur. solved her life-long tension btw being a woman x a writer, and fully discovered her both qualities
W o r k :
-< J. W. Goethe inf. her thinking and teaching, and prepared her for her transl.
-her 1st publ. work the transl. of correspondence of Ger. Writers
C r i t i c i sm :
-wrote unfavourable lit. critical reviews on J. R. Lowell and H. W. Longfellow
-her lifetime: offended the Boston lit. Brahmins (and vice versa) x now: consid. to rank with E. A. Poe as one of Am.’s 1st major lit. critics
-also wrote socially critical essays: tackled controversial public issues incl. the neglect of the blind and the insane, the abuses of F prisoners, etc.
N o n - f i c t i o n :
“The Great Lawsuit: Man Versus Men. Woman Versus Women.”:
-a tightly argued powerful essay, publ. in The Dial
-argues to free men and women from their social roles
-a woman a slave
Woman in the 19th Century:
-an expanded version of “The Great Lawsuit”
-laden with scholarly allusions
Papers on Literature and Art:
-a coll. of essays, publ. shortly before her departure for Eur.
Summer on the Lakes:
-a journal account of her trip to the Midwest
-an intellectual miscellany
-> a model for H. D. Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Life Without & Life Within:
-a coll. of essays, poems, and reviews
Memoirs (posthum.):
-her life recreated by her friends R. W. Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, and W. H. Channing