A brief introduction to ENG 489: American Transcendentalism, taught by Dr. Craig Carey at the University of Southern Mississippi in the spring 2017 semester.
2. “I cannot tell you how readable the book of nature is
becoming for me; my long efforts at deciphering, letter by
letter, have helped me; now all of a sudden it is having its
effect, and my quiet joy is inexpressible.”
—Goethe to Charlotte von Stein, 1786
3. American Transcendentalism
A Brief Historical Overview
• Small intellectual coterie of thinkers, writers, preachers,
and social activists; most of them Unitarians
• Short period of history (1830-1850s), but wide influence
across a range of fields
• Regionally based in Concord and Boston; most men
attended Harvard College and/or its Divinity School, the
training ground for Unitarianism
• Began as a religious/spiritual movement, but spread
outward to education, literature, philosophy, and social
reform
• Sometimes seen as the first counterculture in American;
a youthful vision over the elders of tradition
4. What is…
Transcendentalism?
The Transcendental?
A Transcendentalist?
On his American visit, Charles Dickens was told
"that whatever was unintelligible would certainly
be transcendental"
The Problem
of Definitions
5. "He is German by birth, and is called Giant
Transcendentalist, but as to his form, his features, his
substance, and his nature generally, it is the chief
peculiarity of this huge miscreant that neither he for
himself nor anybody for him has ever been able to
describe them. As we rushed by the cavern's mouth
we caught a hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat
like an ill-proportioned figure but considerably more
like a heap of fog and duskiness. He shouted after
us, but in so strange a phraseology that we knew not
what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or
affrighted”
from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Celestial
Railroad” (1843)
Who/What is the Transcendentalist?
6. • The spirit of Transcendentalism took different
meanings for different individuals
• “Transcendentalist Club” referred to as a club
of the “like-minded”—because no two figures
thought alike
• Liberality was the hallmark of the movement
• Critical of current thinking and norms
• Found something new and refreshing in
Idealist philosophy, specifically Germany
“The club of the like-minded”
7. Subject of Caricature
and Critique
• Foreign (especially German)
• Unintelligible & obtuse
• Did little to satisfy public’s
demand for clarity
• Insular, elite, regional, white
• Style was aphoristic and
prone to metaphor
• Too subjective & personal
8. Two General Divisions in
Transcendentalist thought
Divided around the question of how
best to effect reform
Inner-Oriented Outer-Oriented
Focus on individual,
introspection, self-
reliance, self-culture
Emerson & Thoreau
“Souls are not saved in
bundles.” (Emerson)
Focus on social and communal
reform, the brotherhood of
man, common good
George Ripley & Orestes
Brownson
Abolitionism, Education,
Women’s Rights, Labor Reform
9. • More gospel than systematic philosophy; burst of
thought rather than organized enterprise
• Not dogmatic, expository, or systematic - against the
institutionalization of its own thinking
• Founded on the spirit of revolution and reform: in
religion, philosophy, and literature
• Fresh start, new beginnings — new ideas, new spirit,
new modes of thinking
• Identity, moral values, social norms — all up for grabs
• Seen as a second American Revolution with its
promise to turn the world upside down
What was American Transcendentalism?
10. “Every man carries a revolution in his
waistcoat pocket.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
11. • Transcendentalism is perhaps best considered a
way of perceiving the world centered on individual
consciousness rather than external fact.
• Consciousness over Experience
• Spiritual Intuition over Sensory Experience
• Belief in spiritual element shared by all individuals
• Divinity, divine spark latent within each person - but
waiting to be activated
• Democratization of the spirit — universal divine
inspiration was the bedrock for all
Revolution in Epistemology
(how we know the world)
12. Who were they?
Major Figures
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• Margaret Fuller
Other founders and
major figures
• Bronson Alcott
• George Ripley
• Orestes Brownson
• Elizabeth Peabody
• Frederic Henry Hedge
• Theodore Parker
• Margaret Fuller
Poets
• Ellen Sturgis Hopper
• Jones Very
• William Ellery Channing II
• Christopher Pearse Cranch
Music Critic
• John Sullivan Dwight
14. TRANSCENDENTALISM IN CONTEXT
Religious Context
Philosophical Context
Unitarianism & Liberal Christianity
German Higher Critics (Biblical Criticism)
Eastern & non-Western scriptures
Locke’s Empiricism
German Idealism
Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection
Swedenborg’s “Correspondences”
