LITR
4232: American Renaissance
University
of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2002
Index to Student Research Projects
Brenda
Upton
LITR 4232
Professor C. White
April 20, 2002
Transcendentalism
Through The Eyes of the Forerunners
(Transcendentalists)
Introduction
When
I begin looking for a topic for my research project, I did not know where to
start. I knew I had to choose a topic, so I decided to research the
subject of Transcendentalism through the Eyes of the Forerunners
(Transcendentalists).
The
research project gave the class a choice of two options, analytic research/essay
relevant to the course or a journal of research and reflections concerning a
variety of materials relevant to the course.
I decided on a journal. The
journal options gave me the freedom to pursue several subjects, that may not
perfectly hold together, and since Transcendentalism is an unfamiliar subject,
the journal was my best choice.
I
will begin this journal assignment with an introduction, summarizing my purpose
and organization of my journal. After
the introduction I will give the essential general information about the
subject. This will include explaining the general subject by given
information on the subjects' background using my secondary sources.
I will focus my research on defining Transcendentalism and a brief
history of the subject. I will focus on several well-known forerunners that helped
make Transcendentalism what it was between 1930 and 1850, (Ralph Waldo Emerson
and Henry David Thoreau). To further understand this topic I will focus on how a
group of well know writers known as Transcendentalists, managed to start a
movement that totally rock America in the early nineteenth century and managed
to share their ideas with other writers and poets which influenced their ways of
thinking. I will review some of
their greatest works, summarizing the importance and contributions during the
peak of this movement. In my
conclusion I will summarize what I have learned through researching the subject
of Transcendentalism. I will
take the research that I have complied together and determine what I would no
next if I would continue my research and how I might apply this formation that I
have researched.
Brief
History of American Transcendentalism and Transcendentalists
American
Transcendentalism was an important literary and philosophical movement that
emerged in New England during the first half of the nineteenth century (Mullane
and Wilson). The movement started
initially when a selected group of well educated Harvard trained Unitarian
ministers, who shared ideas of common outlooks and interests and lived in the
decade before the American civil war, became dissatisfied with the belief of
Calvinism and rationalism of the Unitarian Church (1).
The selected well-educated group was raised in households where
republican ideas were vaguely mixed with conservative
Federalism
and residual Calvinism. They went
off to Harvard to find the truth and found instead a curriculum based on the
classics with a generous dose of the empirical philosophy (Serafin 1154).
While most of them passed through Harvard and its Divinity School to
accept their places in the social hierarchy by becoming Unitarian ministers,
they simultaneously worked to defeat that hierarchy through transcendentalism,
with its merging of republican values, European romantic thought, and Puritan
nature mysticism (Serafin 1155).
When
the group started off they called themselves "The Hedge Club" which
was named after one of the members. The
Hedge Club later changed their name to "The Transcendentalist Club, mainly
because they derived some of their basic idealistic concepts from romantic
German philosophy, Immanuel Kant and from such English authors as Carlyle,
Coleridge and Wordsworth (Bartleby 65).
For
the first four years between September 1836 and September 1840, the Club met
nearly thirty times in Boston and Concord to discuss matters of mutual religious
and philosophic interest (Myerson 212). The
Transcendentalist Club had no official program, no membership list, no rigid
organization; and the participants often quarreled (2).
Disputes over such matters as the nature of intuitive knowledge and the
mission of the church broke the group apart and in 1844, the Club was disbanded.
The group was an idealistic and optimistic group of educators that
believed they could find answers to what ever they were seeking.
The group wanted people to know themselves and nature, believing that if
an individual got to know who they were this particular self reliance would lead
to social reform, freedom of ideas and a spiritual way to get to the truth of
what one is always seeking. The
Transcendentalist believed that in order to successfully obtain the truth people
must look beyond what they have been taught and rely instead on their intuition
or their instincts. Individuals had
to learn to read through their intuitions; the external symbols of nature and
translate them into spiritual facts. The
Transcendentalists also believed that there is meaning in everything and every
meaning is good, all connected and parts of a divine plan (3).
"The
group earned a reputation as an independent group that wanted no followers.
Emerson and Thoreau two of the well-known forerunners of the group
admonish their audiences to go their own way rather than emulate the authors.
Emerson declared he wanted no followers.
He stated that it would disappoint him if his ideas created hanger-on
rather than "independence," he would then doubt his own theories and
fear he was guilty of some "impurity of insight (3), especially since the
group focused on independence. At
the same time the Transcendentalist were influencing their audiences to stand on
independence, they were searching for their own independence, independence from
organized religion (4).
The
impact of the movement only lasted ten years, but at its' highest peak the
movement managed to become a major liberating force and contributed to a number
of conflicting areas such as, philosophy, religion, man's place in society and
literature. In philosophy, the
Transcendentalist followed Immanuel Kant, believing that man inherent the
ability to perceive that his existence transcended mere sensory experience, as
opposed to the prevailing belief of John Locke, who believed that the mind was a
blank tablet at birth, which then registered only those impressions perceived
through the senses and experience (4). In
literature, the Transcendentalism furnished a new and significant style, theme
and thought within major writers and major poets.
Transcendentalism
provided for its time the most cogent criticism of commercial materialism, but
it indirectly affected American education, and though it had little immediate
effect on other institutions, it reinforced Gandhi's program of nonviolent
resistance, which has influenced the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
Most Transcendentalists also became involved in anti-slavery and women's
right. They believed that all
people had access to divine inspiration and sought and loved freedom and
knowledge and truth (Hart 1-4).
"Because
the Transcendentalist new ideas were often met with open hostility when
addressed to the public, and because they were often excluded from publishing in
established outlets, the transcendentalists were forced to fall back on their
own resources and created outlets for the development and publication of their
ideas. The Western Messenger, the
earliest of the periodicals that was linked to the movement, was published in
Cincinnati and Louisville from June 1835 to April 1841.
Then as another resource they formed the short-lived Massachusetts
Quarterly Review, edited by Theodore Parker and published from December 1847 to
September 1850. The most famous of
the transcendentalist periodicals was The Dial, published from July 1840 until
April 1844 and edited by Margaret Fuller 1840-42 and Emerson 1842-44.
The Dial provided its contributors the freedom to speak the truth for
better or worse" (Serafin 1155-1156).
The Dial was not a popular success, its subscribers never numbered more
than three hundred, but its contents are perhaps the surest way for today's
reader to gain some sense of the substance and diversity of transcendentalism.
As
an identifiable movement, transcendentalism ceased to exist in the mid
1840's,
but it continued to have a profound effect on American culture for at least the
next century through the works of its most influential spokesmen, Emerson,
Thoreau (Serafin 1156).
Resources:
Hart,
James D. The Oxford Companion to American Literature. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1983.
Mullane,
Janet and Wilson, Robert T. Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism.
Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1989.
Myerson,
Joel. The American Renaissance in New England. Detroit: Gale
Research
Inc., 1978.
Serafin,
Steven R. Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York:
Continuum.
1999.
http://www.transscendentalists.com/what.htm
(1)
http://www.bartleby.com/65/tr/trnscdntll.html
(2)
http://www.historychannel.com/perl/print_book.pl?ID=35757
(3)
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/emersonbio.html
(4)
http://www.vcn.edu/engweb/transweb/tr-def.htm
(4.5)
Literary
Biographies
Ralph
Waldo Emerson
Emerson
is perhaps the single most influential figure in American literary history. Emerson was responsible for shaping the literary style and
vision of the American Romantic period. He
was the major spokesman for a new conception of literature.
Emerson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803.
He comes from a family of ministers.
His father was minister of First Church (Unitarian) of Boston.
When Emerson was eight years old his father died and this forced his
mother to take in borders and do her own housework, but she still managed to
educate her children. Emerson
went to Harvard University at the age of fifteen and graduated at the age of
eighteen. After graduating, he
taught school for three years in Boston. In
1825, he entered Harvard Divinity School, and the next year he was sanctioned to
preach by the Middlesex Association of Minister. The same year Emerson was ordained as a minister (1829), he
married his first wife, Ellen Tucker who died of tuberculosis.
Emerson and Ellen had only been married for eight months.
He was badly shaken by her death and at that time Emerson experienced a
religious crisis and he began questioning his belief and his profession.
During this time he also discovered his inner life; "the conviction
that God dwell within the individual's soul and that the individual is, in this
sense, identical with God. His
spiritual independence increased, but his domestic ties decreased.
He found himself at odds with his church for refusing to administer the
Lord's Supper on grounds of conscience" (Myerson 51).
Because Emerson's parishioners would not excuse him from the ceremony, he
resigned from the Second Church and took a ten-month journey to England in 1832.
"In 1836, Emerson and a few of his associate got together to discuss
America's philosophy and theology. He
helped organized The Dial, and he became the chief figure in the American
literary movement called Transcendentalism" (10).
"Ralph
Waldo Emerson began as an American idealist or transcendentalist, and as that
position enlarged and deepened with time, Emerson came to be seen not only as a
great modern representative of the Platonic, idealist tradition but a major
romantic symbolist. His work can be
seen in some ways, of modern movements toward symbolism, structuralism, and
reader-centered criticism. The
central aspect of his still-vital influence; however, is his insistence that
literature means literary activity" (11).
MAJOR
WORK: Nature
"Emerson's
book, Nature was regarded as "the first document of that remarkable
outburst of Romanticism on Puritan ground."
Nature is a ninety five-page book published in 1836.
Nature is the most memorable American statement of the Romantic idea of
nature as a substitute for Revelation. In
Nature Emerson attempts to show how nature serves and fulfills man on every
level of existence. He states that
through nature man can "enjoy an original relation to the universe."
The main purpose of Nature is to recover for the present generation the direct
and immediate relationship with the world that our ancestors had.
It states by interacting with nature people learn not only what is
practical but also what is good. Nature
is an inquiry into the condition necessary for a modern literature of insight.
The book Nature emphasize that man should turn to nature.
Man is a part of nature, but by virtue of consciousness, he also, and at
the same time is apart from nature."
On
April 27, 1882, the great thinker died of pneumonia that he caught some weeks
before after a rain-soaked walk through his beloved Concord woods.
The tiny New England town tolled the bell for each of his years, shrouded
itself in black, and prepared for the onslaught of mourners who came from far
and near to accompany Emerson to his rest on Poets' Knoll in Sleepy Hollow
cemetery.
Resources
Myerson,
Joel. The American Renaissance in New England. Bruccoli Clark Book,
Gale Research Company. Detroit. 1978.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/emerson.html
http://www.San.beck.org/Emerson.html
http://www.people.brandies.edu/~teuber/emersonbio.html
(10)
Henry
David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau, a writer, philosopher, a
naturalist and poet born in
Concord,
Massachusetts, July 12, 1817, who believed in the importance of individualism.
Thoreau was unmarried. "He
was associated with the Concord-based literary movement called New England
transcendentalism, he embraced the transcendentalist belief in the universality
of creation, and the primacy of personal insight and experience.
Thoreau's advocacy of simple, principled living remains compelling, while
his writings on the relationship between people and the environment helped
define the nature essay" (14).
Thoreau
was educated at Concord Academy and Harvard College, from which he graduated in
1837. During his Harvard years he was exposed to the writings of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who later became his chief mentor and friend.
After Thoreau graduated from Harvard, he worked for a time in his
father's pencil shop and taught at the district school of Concord.
Thoreau only worked on this teaching job for two weeks and resigned
because he protested the disciplinary whipping of students, (a school board
member visited his classroom and told Thoreau that his class was too noisy and
he needed to maintain stricter discipline).
Upset at what was said, Thoreau selected several students at random,
whipped them, and resigned (he was making a point, but understandably some of
the students he treated so unfairly never forgave him) (12).
In
the mid-nineteenth century Thoreau begin keeping a journal in which he collected
his thoughts. During this time he decided to change his name from D. Henry
to Henry D. Thoreau declared
by changing his name he had became a new man.
In 1841, Thoreau accepted an offer from Emerson and his family to come
and live with them and earn his keep as a handyman and gardener while he
concentrated on his writing (12). While
living with the Emerson's he assisted Waldo Emerson with editing and
contributing poetry and prose to the transcendentalist magazine, The Dial. The time that Thoreau lived with
Emerson
and his family, gave him the freedom to read and think and write when he most
needed. He also had time to reorganize his journal, as well as
organize and construct material for his book, A Week on the Concord and
Merrimack Rivers. During the
time he lived with the Emerson he also tutored the children of Emerson's
brother, William Emerson (13).
From
July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1846, Thoreau at the age of 27 lived in a cabin he
built near Walden Pond. Thoreau
restricted his diet for the most to what fruit and vegetables he found growing
wild and beans he planted and hoed. When
Thoreau was not busy weeding his bean row and trying to protect them from hungry
woodchucks, or occupied by fishing, swimming, or rowing, he spent long hours
observing and recording his local surroundings along with reading, and writing
in his journal (14). During the
summer of 1846, he also spent a night in jail because he refused to pay taxes as
a protest against slavery and the Mexican War.
After Thoreau was released from jail he begin writing Civil Disobedience,
to explain why private conscience can constitute a higher law than civil
authority. Under a government that
imprisons any unjustly, he argued, "the true place for a just man is also a
prison."
Thoreau
continue to vocally and actively protest slavery, he even went as far as to aid
runaway slaves (14). "When Thoreau's writing failed to win money or
acclaim, he turned surveyor to support himself.
As a result, Thoreau's later years increasingly were spent outdoors,
observing and writing about nature. Considered
something of a failure by the small town merchants and farmers of Concord,
Thoreau died at home on May 6, 1862. His
place in American letters is secure, and many continued to find inspiration in
his work and use his work and his ideas as examples" (14).
MAJOR
WORK: Walden and Civil Disobedience
Thoreau's
greatest works was, Walden or Life in the Woods (1854) and "Civil
Disobedience." The Walden is
the prose epic not only of Transcendentalism, but also of practical
Transcendentalism. It is concerned
with "that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy"
(Mott 251). The Walden is
Thoreau's way of translating transcendental idealism from an abstract and
technical discussion in the work of a few professional philosophers into
generally accessible and even practicable way of life.
In the Walden Thoreau shows how we can free ourselves for what he calls
the "finer fruits of life" (Mott 252).
The
"Civil Disobedience" published in 1849 as resistance to the civil
government. The incident that
provoked Thoreau to writing this essay is when he was arrested and spent one
night in jail for protesting against paying taxes.
He was going into town to have a pair of shoes repaired, and was
arrested. He was released the next
day, but the event gave support to the passive resistance of Mahandas Gandhi,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other twentieth-century conscientious
objectors.
Resources
Mott,
Wesley T. Biographical Dictionary of Transcendentalism. Westport:
Greenwood Press, 1996.
http://www.walden.org/thoreau/overview/thoreau_writings.htm
(12)
http://search.biography.com/print_record.pl?id=20100
(13)
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/today/jull2.html
(14)
Conclusion
In
conclusion, I learned through my research that the Transcendentalism movement
may have lasted ten years according to researchers, but the movement still
exists today some extent. I believe that it is impossible for a movement as powerful as
Transcendentalism to have lasted only ten years. The movement was and is a classic, popular and
representative literature. It is a
movement of Romanticism relating to "gothic" and the
"sublime." Furthermore,
the movement is a literature that can be used for discussing representative
problems and subjects of American culture.
While
researching Transcendentalism I learned about two very important individuals
that contributed to the ideas of this powerful movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Henry David Thoreau. The ideas of
these two writers were so amazing until I found myself wanting to be a part of
their Transcendental Club or wanted to start the club all over again.
I can see why the movement had such a great impact on America, because at
the time the movement and their ideas were made public, America needed to know
that every man had a right to a life of freedom and man needed to know to look
around and observe what nature had to offer.
I
have learned through this research to be more aware of my surrounding and not to
let anything stop me from doing what I want to do.
I have also learned that Literature is not only a genre, but Literature
is a world all by itself and in order to appreciate it I need to learn more
about it.
If
I would continue researching this subject, I believe that I would go back over
all my research information and take my time and read it again.
I would read a second time for a better understanding of the subject, the
transcendentalists and their major works. I
would research their works more thoroughly so that I could better understand
their purpose. I would take my
research further into their religion, because I questioned several things I read
about their religious belief. I
question what I read because I did not understand what they were trying to say,
so I believe if I had more time and then at the same time was able to ask
questions, I would be able to get the right understanding.
In
my research, I learned that it took one powerful movement Transcendentalism, and
the ideas of several philosophers to guide many writers in developing their own
philosophy which in turn affected their writing, the writings that we are now
studying and affecting us as we do so. The
affects of transcendentalism have filtered down in time through those it has
touched and changed and this movement continues on today.
The transcendentalists started a movement hoping that their audience
would not follow them, but instead think on their own and to be independent.
The effect that the transcendentalist hoped for was more than
independence; it became an essence of all good learning.