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Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson

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American Transcendentalism

y Idealistic philosophy, spiritual position, andliterary movement that advocates reliance onromantic intuition and moral human conscience

y Belief that humans can intuitively transcend thelimits of the senses and of logic to a plane of higher truths

y Values spirituality (direct access to a benevolentGod, not organized religion or ritual), divinity of 

humanity, nature pursuits, and social justicey Roughly 1830s-1850s

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Spirit of RevivalismSpirit of Revivalism

y Transcendentalism can

be read as one of the

many spiritual revivalsof American culture

fostered in antebellum

years.

Image: religious camp meeting. J. maze

Burbank, C. 1839

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Rises out of two key intellectual andRises out of two key intellectual and

spiritual traditions:spiritual traditions:

y European

Romanticismy American

Unitarianism

Image: Second Church of Boston, where Emerson heldfirst ministerial position

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Roots in European RomanticismRoots in European Romanticism

y Begins Germanyin the late 18th

century

y

England: 1798-1830s

y Wordsworth,Coleridge, Keats,

Shelley, Byron,etc.

Image: William Wordsworth

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RomanticismRomanticism

y Reaction again overly-rational Enlightenmentphilosophy, art, religion,literature

y Poetry/art not a thing of logic,

strict rhyming, strict meter, orfor the highest classes

y Art-inspiration, spontaneity,naturalness

y In Nature and Childhood wesee universal, spiritual truths

Image: Grasmere Village, Hill Country, Great Britain

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RomanticismRomanticism

y Nature the key toself-awareness

y Open self to natureand you may receiveits gifts: a deeper,more mysticalexperience of life

y Nature offers a kindof grace-salvation from

mundane evil of everyday life

Image: Mont Blanc

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Nature and RomanticismNature and Romanticism

y External world of natureactually reflectsinvisible, spiritual reality

y Self-reliance: seek thetruth in immediateperceptions of the world

y Then one can reconcilebody and soul within (ispart of universal soulor "over soul, source of 

all life) Image: Niagara Falls, Thomas Cole, 1829

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The SublimeThe Sublime

y Heightenedpsychological state

y Overwhelmingexperience of awe,

reverence,comprehension

y Achieved when soul isimmersed in grandeur

of nature sense of transcendence from theeveryday world

Image: W anderer , Caspar David Friedrich

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Romanticism in AmericaRomanticism in America

y Arrives in the 1820s

y Centers aroundConcord,

Massachusetts-kindof artists colony

y TranscendentalistClub 1836writing,

reading, reformprojects

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Roots in American UnitarianismRoots in American Unitarianism

y Emerson was an Unitarian minister

y Unitarianism (Christian denomination) risesin late 1700s; formalized by William ElleryChanning, early 1800s

y Liberal church broken from strict NewEngland congregationalism

y Reject total depravity of humanity

y Believe in perfectibility of humanity

y Reject idea of an angry Godfocus onbenevolent God

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Emerson and his Break fromEmerson and his Break from

UnitarianismUnitarianism

y Too intellectualized, too removed from

direct experience of God

y Extend and radicalize Unitarian beliefs in

benevolent God, closeness of God and

humanity

y Bring these spiritual ideas to life

y If Unitarians believe that truth comes onlythrough empirical study and rationality

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Transcendentalism as SpiritualTranscendentalism as Spiritual

RevivalRevival

y Ironic refiguring of Puritanism,without the theological dogma

y Transcendentalists lonelyexplorers (pilgrims)outside

society and conventiony Trying to form new society

based on metaphysicalawareness

y Trying to purify society bypurifying hearts and minds.

y Nature a spiritual manifesto

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Spiritual RevivalSpiritual Revival

y Transcendentalism is "a pilgrimage fromthe idolatrous world of creeds and ritualsto the temple of the living God in the soul.

Is [is] a putting to silence of tradition andformulas, that the Sacred Oracle might beheard through the intuitions of thesingled-eyed and pure hearted. William

Henry Channing

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Spiritual revivalSpiritual revival

y That belief we term Transcendentalism

maintains that man has ideas, that come not

through the five senses of the powers of 

reasoning, but are either the result of directrevelations from god, his immediate inspiration,

or his immanent presence in the spiritual world

Charles Mayo Ellis, An Essay on

Transcendentalism,1842

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Spiritual RevivalSpiritual Revival

y Standing on the bare ground, --my headbathed in the blithe air, and uplifted intoinfinite space, --all mean egotism

vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball;I am nothing; I see all; the currents of theUniversal being circulate through me; Iam part or particle of God. Ralph Waldo

Emerson,  Nature, 1836

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The Transparent EyeballThe Transparent Eyeball

y Image Christopher Pearse Cranch, parody of lines from Nature, 1838

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Reading NatureReading Nature

y Easier to Emerson clearly from a distance, but everything gets foggy if youget too close 'Do not give me facts in the order of cause and effect, but dropone or two links in the chain, and give me with a cause, an effect two orthree times removed.'

y When reading Nature your goal is to see how Emerson:

A. Reclaims/redefines 'culture'brings it back to lifeB. Prose poemread both for what it says literally and what it suggests

about what cannot be said clearly

y Three underlying assumptions:

1. Primacy of the soul

2. Sufficiency of nature3. Immediacy of God

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Works Cited

Roggenkamp, Karen. "Ralph Waldo Emerson and American

Transcendentalism."  Authorstream.com.Author Stream, 30082007.

Web. 2 Nov 2010. <http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Barbara-

11735-Emerson-Transcendentalism-Ralph-Waldo- American-

Product-Training-Manuals-ppt- powerpoint/>.