Transcendentalism Introduction

Transcendentalism The American Renaissance A Literary Coming of Age (1840-1860) Miss Mottle American Literature David Anderson Sr. High School

The Big Question for Americans
Would there ever be an American writer as great as England’s William Shakespeare?
Renaissance : means “rebirth.” Describes the extraordinary explosion of literary genius, comparing America to England’s Renaissance.

Your Book’s Version
1. Everything in the world, including human beings, is a reflection of the Divine Soul.
2. The physical facts of the natural world are a doorway to the spiritual or ideal world.
3. People can use their intuition to behold God’s spirit revealed in nature or in their own souls.
4. Self-Reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and blind conformity to custom and tradition.
5. Spontaneous feelings and intuition are superior to deliberate intellectualism and rationality.

Characteristics The Transcendental View of the World
Free thought (individualism)
Confidence
Importance of nature
Self-reliance
Non-conformity

Two Main Literary Groups
1. The Transcendental Club
2. The Dark Romantics
3. Similarities between The Dark Romantics & The Transcendentalists

The Transcendental Club
Transcendentalism : the idea that in determining the ultimate reality of God, the universe, the self, and other important matters, one must transcend or go beyond everyday experience in the natural world.
Dates back to the Greek philosopher, Plato, in the fourth century B.C.
Values intuition and human perfectibility

Transcendentalism Authors
A. Ralph Waldo Emerson
B. Henry David Thoreau

Emerson Thoreau

The Dark Romantics
1. Focus on the conflict between good and evil.
2. The psychological effects of guilt and sin.
3. Madness and derangement in the human mind.

The Dark Romantics Authors
1. Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. Edgar Allan Poe
3. Herman Melville

Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne

Edgar Allan Poe

Similarities between The Dark Romantics & The Transcendentalists
1. Valued Intuition over logic
2. Like the Puritans, they saw signs & symbols in human events

Examples of Transcendentalist Comics

Calvin & Hobbes

A Student View of Transcendentalism
Click Here!

HOMEWORK!
Find lyrics for class on Thursday of this week. You can handwrite them if you do not have printer access from albums, or you can print!
The lyrics must have qualities of Transcendentalism.
Write the rough draft of your descriptive essay for Monday of next week.
That’s All!

Emerson
1803-1882
Appealed to intellectuals and the public
They refer to him as a poet.
Young rebel
He left and went on a European tour
Suffered from a severe loss of memory in old age.

Literary Terminology
Imagery : the use of language to evoke pictures or concrete sensations of a person, place, or an experience.
Paradox : a contradictory statement.
Aphorisms : short statements that express wise or clever observations about life.

Henry David Thoreau’s Walden American Literature Miss Mottle

Walden

Walden Woods

Walden

The Old Text

Walden Pond

Pictures Found At
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/buildings/new-england/thoreau/info/front.jpg
www.walden-pond.net/
www.psymon.com/walden/firstedition.html

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Transcendentalism Introduction

by Miss Mottle on Nov 18, 2008

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