LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Sample Student Research Project 2006

Cindy L. Goodson

Journal: Christendom Astray from the Bible According to the Transcendentalists

 

Quote: “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” 

Emerson, Self – Reliance 1849

Introduction:

Thank God I was introduced to the philosophical writings of such greats as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and a few others about a year ago.  Prior to that, I had never really read anything at great length other than the Bible and Christian based writings.  I came with no extensive background in literary studies of my classmates have.  But I must say I am opulently getting all that I bargained for right here in the belly of American Romanticism.  For me, this graduate program has been, like an escape from the daily rat race and as we’ve learned in class the elements of romanticism, I can earnestly say that mine is a desire to experience a state of, ‘other than the here and now’.  This research journal is like a celebration, an escape from the reality of life’s atrocious stresses and being boggled down with chasing light bills, property taxes and high insurance premiums.  It’s like my very own literary coming out party and I’m a “newborn babe who desires the sincere milk of [these] word(s) that [I] may grow thereby:” (2 Peter 2:2) 

 

With this project, I get a chance to go on a research expedition, journal my findings and take my readers with me.  To keep the journal within the boundaries of the syllabus readings I will focus my attention specifically on the lives of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Denise Levertov, with regards to their usages of Biblical motifs and references.  I’ll also touch on Jonathan Edwards a bit.  By looking at their lives and some particularly poignant selections from their works and journals, I hope to learn more about their spiritual foundations, their views on Christendom as it has obviously strayed from the Bible, and their quests for truth.  As I embark upon the methodologies that center around the school of thought in transcendentalism I hope to gain a better understanding of the marriage between romanticism and the Bible.  And like Sheila Newell wrote in her 2003 research journal, “I am fascinated with the Bible in literature.”  I have been rapt in it ever since I became a student of the Bible in the late 90’s.  I will obtain my information through a close examination of how the Bible was introduced to these writers and was applied in their lives.  I want to know how the Bible has served as a refuge for transcendentalists, and yet how they have been able to uphold the sincere message therein in the midst of folly within organized religion.  I can gain a better understanding of how to interpret the Biblical references if I can get closer to the author’s mindset of how they view Bible scriptures.  Once I gain an understanding of the authors’ views I can make suggestions of how they have interpreted a particular work.   

 

When we think of transcendentalists, we probably think of a group of people who live completely outside of the Bible, well it’s not true.  In fact, they are so much inside of the scriptures that when I indulge in their deliciously constructed insights to life, man and nature it makes me appreciate them even the more.  Their lives and teachings remind me of the life and wisdom of Jesus Christ and his disciples and I would like to establish why in my opinion, the transcendentalists I’ve chosen to cover could all be considered as types of Christ.  By this I mean they all possess certain transcending characteristics and each of their personal constitutions were very complimentary of the one many of us call Savior. 

 

I am particularly drawn to transcendental elements found in each of the lives and writings of these authors and will therefore focus on our class objective 1a, which deals with the Romantic Spirit or Ideology, and more specifically I will identify and criticize ideas and attitudes associated with the elements of the gothic, the sublime, and the individual in nature.  In addition to that, I expect to reveal the romantic impulses of the desire these writers had for anything but the here and now, and their quest or journey for crossing physical borders and transgressing social or psychological boundaries in order to attain or regain some transcendent goal or dream or truth.  And they do these things without stepping outside of the Bible.  How does this topic tie in with romanticism?  It’s simple, both the Bible and the Transcendentalist are romantic and poetic figures in American Literature.  I will begin the research with a general statement of how transcendentalism came about.

 

Transcendentalism: The Movement

In the beginning, there was, in my opinion transcendentalism.  While the Bible doesn’t say it quiet this way, throughout the scriptures we see romantic transcendental elements which existed hundreds of years before it became an American movement.  Therefore, I’d like to talk briefly about this movement.  While scrolling through the LexuxNexus database on the UHCL library’s website I found an article that discusses the beginnings of the transcendental movement and it stated:  “In New England, an intellectual movement known as transcendentalism developed as an American version of romanticism. The movement began among an influential set of authors based in Concord, Massachusetts, and was led by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Like romanticism, transcendentalism rejected both 18th-century rationalism and established religion, which for the transcendentalists meant the Puritan tradition in particular.  Instead, the transcendentalists celebrated the power of the human imagination to commune with the universe and transcend the limitations of the material world. The transcendentalists found their chief source of inspiration in nature.”  This journal does not dwell on how the transcendentalists rejected religion and rationalism in the 18th century, but rather how they embraced pure religion, which is important to me because I have a personal interest in growing and learning more about spiritual things pertaining to nature, the Bible and pure religion and this is what the writers advocated.   After reading this I asked myself why they rejected Puritanism.  At that point I searched the web to find a good definition of what the Puritan doctrine was all about.

Puritanism:General Information:

The main BELIEVE web-page (and the index to subjects) is at http://mb-soft.com/believe/indexaz.html

http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/puritani.htm

According to an article on the BELIEVE website, Puritans was the name given in the 16th century to the more extreme Protestants within the Church of England who thought the English Reformation had not gone far enough in reforming the doctrines and structure of the church; they wanted to purify their national church by eliminating every shred of Catholic influence. In the 17th century many Puritans immigrated to the New World, where they sought to found a holy Commonwealth in New England. Puritanism remained the dominant cultural force in that area into the 19th century.  Puritanism was a loosely organized reform movement originating during the English Reformation of the sixteenth century. The name came from efforts to "purify" the Church of England by those who felt that the Reformation had not yet been completed.  Eventually the Puritans went on to attempt purification of the self and society as well.  Puritanism generally extended the thought of the English Reformation, with distinctive emphases on four convictions: (1) that personal salvation was entirely from God, (2) that the Bible provided the indispensable guide to life, (3) that the church should reflect the express teaching of Scripture, and (4) that society was one unified whole.

According to the article, the Puritans believed that ‘humankind was utterly dependent upon God for salvation. With their predecessors in England and with Luther and Calvin they believed that reconciliation with God came as a gift of his grace received by faith. They were Augustinians who regarded humans as sinners, unwilling and unable to meet the demands, or to enjoy the fellowship, of a righteous God apart from God's gracious initiative.”  Now that I have a grasp of what the Puritans believed in I can compare it to what the belief system was. 

What is Transcendentalism? 

An article by Jone Johnson Lewis, Women's History Guide http://womenshistory.about.com/bltranscend.htm

“One way to look at the Transcendentalists is to see them as a generation of well educated people who lived in the decades before the American Civil War and the national division that it both reflected and helped to create. These people, mostly New Englanders, mostly around Boston, were attempting to create a uniquely American body of literature. It was already decades since the Americans had won independence from England.  Now, these people believed, it was time for literary independence. And so they deliberately went about creating literature, essays, novels, philosophy, poetry, and other writing that were clearly different from anything from England, France, Germany, or any other European nation.”

The guide continues to explain other ways of looking at looking at Transcendentalists and that is to see them as “a generation of people struggling to define spirituality and religion (our words, not necessarily theirs) in a way that took into account the new understandings their age made available. The new Biblical Criticism in Germany and elsewhere had been looking at the Christian and Jewish scriptures through the eyes of literary analysis and had raised questions for some about the old assumptions of religion. The spiritual hunger of the age that also gave rise to a new evangelical Christianity gave rise, in the educated centers in New England and around Boston, to an intuitive, experiential, passionate, more-than-just-rational perspective. God gave humankind the gift of intuition, the gift of insight, the gift of inspiration. Why waste such a gift?  Added to all this, the scriptures of non-Western cultures were discovered in the West, translated, and published so that they were more widely available. The Harvard-educated Emerson and others began to read Hindu and Buddhist scriptures, and examined their own religious assumptions against these scriptures. In their perspective, a loving God would not have led so much of humanity astray; there must be truth in these scriptures, too. Truth, if it agreed with an individual's intuition of truth, must be indeed truth. “

And so Transcendentalism was born. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.  Yes, men, but women too.”

            I think the above is a fair working definition and one that I agree with of what the driving force was behind this great transcendental movement and we can now move into the next phase a defining statement that I am in part but not wholly in agreement with.

 

Important ideas from Warren, Robert Penn, Cleanth Brooks, and R.W.B. Lewis:

"A National Literature and Romantic Individualism." in Romanticism. eds. James Barbour and Thomas Quirk. NY: Garland, 1986, 3-24.

As I continue with the collection of defining transcendentalism, my research leads me to another article that proves that there are differencing opinions as to the philosophy of the transcendental belief system.  According to Warren, Penn, and Lewis, “Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalism is not a religion; it is a pragmatic philosophy, a state of mind, and a form of spirituality. It is not a religion because it does not adhere to the three concepts common in all religions: a. a belief in a God; b. a belief in an afterlife (dualism); and c. a belief that this life has consequences on the next (if you're good in this life, you go to heaven in the next, etc.). Transcendentalism is monist; it does not reject an afterlife, but its emphasis is on this life.” 

            This definition appears in my opinion to be in direct conflict with our taught understanding of Christianity.  So how can I marry the Bible and Transcendentalism ideologies?  If what we believe to be the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Bible are primarily concerned with the next life and these guys are only dealing with this life, can we come to terms?   I will prove that the two groups fit well together.  I believe very strongly that when taught correctly, we would agree that the teachings of Christ and the disciples were fundamentally pertaining to one’s learning and application of spiritual things in this life.  I also believe that certain religious doctrines and groups have a built-in element of fear, sadness, depression and guilt and it’s what we call Christianity.  With the influx of such wayward teachings and the overload of superstitions and terror tactics of hell and eternal burning, it is sufficient now to remark that the person who is not convinced by the moral evidence presented to his understanding on a calm and independent study of the Holy Scriptures, in conjunction with the historical evidences of the facts which constitute the basis its literary structure, is not likely to be altered in his persuasion by elaborate argument.   What I mean is that the moral inconsistency of professing Christians has, no doubt, done something to shake the faith of many; the natural lawlessness of the human mind is also an element in the various attempts to get rid of a book which exalts the authority of God over the will of man. 

The great thing about the Transcenders is that they went beyond the religious sects without leaving the people behind.  And this is a direct correlation of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.  Jesus took the message to the people – he went beyond religion and advocated pure religion like the others.  Emerson, for example, the poet, philosopher one of the greatest literary figures in history did this in his life as well.  And I will explore that as I get further into the journal.

 

How The Bible became a part of their culture:

Avani, Abraham Albert.  The Bible and Romanticism. Paris:  Mouthon, 1969.  Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science The University of Chicago Press 1992.  Norton Anthology, Bartel Roland ed. James S. Ackerman, Thayer S. Warshaw. Biblical Images in Literature. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975.

My next objective is to find out how the Bible became a part of my writers’ culture and to do this I will use a few sources.  Lindberg points out for me that what is important for our purposes are the fact that “[…]” Christianity came to play a powerful religious role in the late Roman Empire.  From this fact follows the question that we must now take up – namely, how did the dominance of Christianity affect knowledge of, and attitudes toward, nature?  The standard answer, developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and widely propagated in the twentieth, maintains that Christianity presented serious obstacles to the advancement of science and, indeed, sent the scientific enterprise into a tailspin from which it did not recover for more than a thousand years.  As a result, one of the charges frequently leveled against the church is that it was broadly anti-intellectual-that the leaders of the church preferred faith to reason and ignorance to education.  This directly juxtaposes the position of the transcendentalists from an intellectual perspective. (45)

 

For a more general answer I will refer to Sheila Newell’s research journal where she gives a great review of Avni’s commentary.  “His opening paragraphs suggest that the Bible is a foundational text for Western civilization, which suggests the importance of Biblical literature.  According to Avani, Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible [provided a]‘ unified the literary language’ (15). “[…]” Luther’s Bible translation brought to light the ‘expressions and images of the Bible’ (15).  Linberg tells stated that “Christians quickly recognized that if the Bible was to be read, literacy would have to be encouraged; and in the long run Christianity became the major patron of European education and a major borrower from the classical intellectual tradition.”(45)   I found helpful insight into how American Renaissance authors use the Bible in their work through an examination of the effect of the Bible on selected works of literature.  Bartel writes, that the Bible is “among the most achievements of Western culture” (9).  He supports that because of the fact that the authors use the Bible to “drive home a thematic point or a character trait” (14), and it proves once again, that the Bible is “indispensable when it comes to the formation and understanding of our literature” (14).  According to Bartel, Thoreau used the Biblical passages to describe his thoughts and feelings (14), suggesting psychological implications.  Suggesting the words of Solomon, Thoreau writes: “Pray tell me any thing new that has happened to a man any where on this globe” (Norton Anthology 902).  The words of Solomon read: “”The thing that hath been it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”  (Ecclesiastes 1:9).  This speaks to my point of the transcendalists’ usage of the Bible as a refuge.  Thoreau had similar experiences as Solomon had many centuries earlier as expressed through his despairing tone, which also suggests the psychological implication.  Thoreau is frustrated with man’s lack of social responsibility.

 

In appreciation of Newell’s 2003 project, I would like to reference her ideal on this subject.  She mentions Bartel as saying that a successful allusion operates like a metaphor” (14) and that if she were to use Bartel’s logic Throreau’s allusion to Solomon’s words suggests that Thoreau and Solomon might think the same.  And she goes on to say that their “[…] “sameness in thought juxtaposes the two men; and that she couldn’t see a metaphor with this allusion, as Bartel would suggest.  But rather, that Thoreau is suggesting that his ideas are philosophically equal with Sololmon’s.  “[…]” This positioning elevates Thoreau’s ideas, while at the same time lowering the Bible from its lofty position.  Thoreau uses the Biblical allusion to suggest that the Bible no longer stands on its own, at least in Thoreau’s world, and that Thoreau’s ideas are just as lofty as the Bible’s.  I disagree with the idea of the Bible’s position being lowered, but would offer that the use of the Biblical allusion heightens Thoreau’s awareness of the scriptures as a refuge which is why he makes references to Solomon’s words.

           

Another great example would be “The Jacobs Ladder” by Denise Levertov.  The poem is based on a scripture from the Bible in Genesis 28:12-15. This scripture describes a ladder in Jacob’s dream, which reaches from earth to heaven, and the angels of God are ascending and descending on it.  Through his vision, God appears declaring to Jacob the future of his descendants or a confirmation of the Abrahamic Covenant to him.  “And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth…” (Gen. 28:14) During the dream, God explains to him that He is always with him.  When Jacob woke up he dedicated himself to God and Bethel becomes a significant place in Scripture because Jacob changed the name of the place from Luz to Beth-el (28:19)

 

The poem follows Objective 1a, the romance narrative--describing a quest or journey toward transcendence.  She features precise imagery using both sublime and gothic expressions and subjects drawn from everyday life, often recognizing and celebrating the spiritual qualities of domestic situations.  She follows the life of a man who is on a journey to a greater place and at the end he, “The poem ascends.”  This can be viewed as the result of one not swift of strong but one who endured till the end.

 

1st Stanza: The writer begins with what the stairway is not. It is not “a thing of gleaming strands/a radiant evanescence” I believe she’s saying that life is not as simple as suggested in the Genesis version of Jacob’s Ladder. 

 

She combines her organic form of writing, letting the reader know she fully understands the Bible’s version of Jacob’s Ladder, but says, “consider this…” and she sort of puts a spin on the whole ladder thing and combines it with the alternative rosy stone paved road which is to me romantic because it expresses the sublime: Beauty, hope, optimism.  “All roads lead to Rome.”

                                                 

The fact that Jacob dreams of this ladder that reaches from the earth into heaven is a romantic theme because the Bible’s premise is that the children of Israel hope for redemption and through this redeemer they will live forever in glory according to the promises of God.  A ‘getting to glory’ mindset is a crossing over for believers and the ladder represents that crossing of physical borders in order to attain the transcendent goal or dream; heaven. 

 

2nd Stanza: “It is of stone.”  Stone is a symbol of solidity and beauty; diamonds are stones.  She’s replacing the ladder with the stone.   There’s a sense of optimism; representative of hope in the future.  “A rosy stone that takes a glowing tone of softness” the stones are used metaphorically to represent the stoned-paved streets. In Rome cut stones where the first smooth roads; All roads lead to Rome.  This connection to Rome, is probably a result of her religious affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church so she would have studied this history.

 

Behind is the sky with a night gray color – man looks to the past and has doubts.  For her, she hated the wars.

If you’re on the ladder you can’t look back.

Gothic color scheme – night gray give depictions of a state of melancholy – could be a considered a romantic spirit.

“It is a stone…” This could represent the word from God.  It is of stone, it’s solid, reliable, dependable the Bible is considered the road map to life.

 “Rosy” signifies love, sacrifice, and blood – sublime expressions of beauty and pain = Jesus the cross

 

3rd Stanza: “Sharp angels,” represent the trials of life, things don’t always go as planned, still optimism present in her.  Things are not always as they appear.

1841 Emerson’s (Self-Reliance) ref ships – the voyage of the best ship is a zig-zag. A line of hundreds tacks.  A glance from a sufficient distance gives the appearance of a straight line but the actual navigators.  

4th Stanza:  I see clearly the connection between Levertov and Emerson through his influence of her use of imagery.  She recognized Emerson's influence on her thoughts on organic poetry. She quotes him as saying, "This insight which expressed itself by what is called Imagination does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by sharing the path or circuit of things through forms, and so making it translucent to others"

 

“Must scrape his knees” -  We overcome obstacles and achieve higher levels but we get bumps and bruises along the way. 

“Cut stone console his groping feet” – road to accomplishment; reaching a destination; again the cut stones could represent diamonds or wealth.  The wings of the angels represent the strength of the Lord, which God promised to Jacob in the vision.

“The poem ascends” - Man is like a poem to her.  He succeeds.  We see things the way we see them and have interpretations, others see things the way they see them and interpret them.  A poet sees things and creates poems out of them.  The life and journey of a man is represented through romantic expressions.

 

Emerson’s “The Divinity School Address”
Major Themes

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-134,pageNum-49.html

Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355

This great outline of major themes has given me a greater insight and understanding of how Emerson longed for the students to gain the freedom of thought and belief and I will recommend this reading to all aspiring theologians and independent thinkers.  He exhorted: “Man as Outlet to the Divine. Emerson bases all that he says to the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School upon the intimate relationship between man and God earlier put forth in Nature. At the beginning of the address, he introduces the unity of God, man, and nature that he elsewhere terms the Oversoul, and he refers to this unity throughout. He stresses that a true sense of religion, indeed the very soundness of the individual and of society, are impossible to achieve unless a man realizes his direct access to God and recognizes that religion and virtue are within, not imposed or understood from without. Man has no need for ‘mediator or veil’ between himself and God. This immediate connection gives man his innate and unlimited capacity for development toward God’s perfection. Man expresses his oneness with God through virtue in character and action. Emerson is very clear about man’s inherent potential for good, and about how the state into which the church has fallen has obscured our perception of human perfectibility: ‘[Man] learns that his being is without bound; that, to the good, to the perfect, he is born, low as he now lies in evil and weakness. That which he venerates is still his own, though he has not realized it yet.’ ’The Divinity School Address” is Emerson’s response to what he sees as a widespread crisis of faith caused by man’s disconnection from the source of his powers. ‘”

Emerson emphasizes that a direct connection with God is available to and exemplified in each and every person. This belief guides his discussion of the nature and importance of Jesus, whom he regards as a man, and as the highest demonstration of the expression of the divine spirit through the life and actions of a man. Jesus serves as a model and a source of inspiration for other men, but he did not achieve anything beyond the capabilities of humankind in general. The church has held Jesus up as different from and superior to other men, and has focused excessively on “the person of Jesus”—that is, on the particular qualities that distinguish Jesus from other men—rather than on his inherent similarity to the rest of mankind. Emerson insists upon the complete equality of every man in regard to the knowledge of God: “The soul knows no persons. It invites every man to expand to the full circle of the universe, and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love.” Emerson sees the deification of Jesus as a disservice to man in general and to Jesus as well. Men cannot forge an understanding of the God within by emulating others, even such a powerful exemplar as Jesus. And Jesus loses humanity, warmth, and his true excellence when approached as “a demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo.” Jesus himself—“the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of a man”—understood better than anyone the divine nature of mankind.

 

            I have cited a few important excerpts from Emerson’s teachings and my research continues along that path with the convictions expressed by Jonathan Edwards, or as I like to refer to him as an 18th century John the Baptist.  The primary function of Edwards in my research was to journal my appreciation for a man literally after ‘God’s own heart.’  Like David the psalmist, he knew how to get a reaction to his heart’s string which could only be pulled by the feeling he got when he was in the midst of the spiritual realm loving on his Creator.  I mean, here’s a man who according the biographical information in the Norton Anthology was “concerned about his soul at a very young age.”  And he is definitely a ‘God Chaser.’ 

 

According to the Norton Anthology, the circumstances surrounding Edwards’s career are not without their drama, and his rise to eminence and fall from power remain one of the most moving stories in American Literature.  At the age of thirteen, Edwards was admitted to Yale College; he stayed on to read theology in New Haven for two years after his graduation in 1720.  A determination for perfection committed him to a daily regime of rising at four in the morning; he studied for thirteen hours a day, and reserved part of each day for walking.  He was married in 1727 and in 1729 succeeded his grandfather the Reverend Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, Massachusetts, one of the most influential and independent figures in the religious life of New England.  He was sometimes called the “Pope of the Connecticut Valley.” During this time he managed to tend to his duties as pastor of a growing congregation and deliver brilliant sermons, to write some of his most important books concerned primarily with defining the nature of true religious experience and watch his eleven children grow up. 

 

Few individuals ever appeared in the church of God who have merited, and actually received, higher tributes of respect than Jonathan Edwards.  What I appreciate most about Edwards was his uncanny zeal toward the things of God and his pursuit for the members of his congregation to be more than mere spectators but to literally engage in the truth as it pertains to an emotional relationship with God.  I can personally relate to this zealous adrenalin because of my own experiences working like a ‘Gad Fly’ in the ministry trying my best to stir up the people to move into a closer and more personal love relationship with God, rather than a fearful, depressing hum drum service oriented, tithe paying based state.   Only listening to a preacher who tells them how to get to heaven but never getting an understanding of the scriptures for themselves.

 

Norton Anthology – pg 182

A brief look into the family history of Edwards, paints a picture for me of his foundation and his background.  His biography in the Norton Anthology provides insight about his upbringing and the influence his family had on him as they had declared him to be a future leader in the religious sector.  Born in 1703, in East Windsor, Connecticut, a town not far from Hartford, the son of the Reverend Timothy Edwards and Esther Stoddard Edwards.   Edwards, to me is the most gothic in his application of religious texts in his Personal Narrative (pg 184 norton) he writes, “[…]” Indeed, I was at some times very uneasy, […] at a time when I was in the midst of many uneasy thoughts about the state of my soul, to seize me with a pleurisy, in which he brought me nigh to the grave, and shook me over the pit of hell.  His uneasy thoughts are an example of gothic expressions and deals with the dark places of one’s mind especially for Edwards to have been concerned about his soul and bringing him nigh to the grave.  

 

CONCLUSION:

There are numerous contributors to the American Romantic Movement.  In my opinion, they did not have the historical breadth and depth and duration as Emerson, Thoreau, Edwards and Levertov.  Nor were they as spiritually endowed in their literary functions as these were in my opinion.  When reviewing the romantic writers, they appear to be equal in their romanticists’ situations.  They write from a place that is fuller, richer than the general conversation of the day; shallow and without much, if any thought or feeling.  The figures I chose to represent the romantics proved to be beyond the category itself.  They have more of a historical significance that I’m looking for in my personal studies.  They also had the most historical criticisms after their deaths.  Emerson, in Self Reliance writes of his awareness of historical significance and even gives the recipe.  He states, " That the moment man acts from himself, tossing the laws, books, idolatries, and customs out of the windows, we pity him no more, but thank and revere him,--and that teacher shall restore man to splendor, and make his name dear to all history".  Here, Emerson is not only stating his place beyond the writers of his day, but giving the future reader a roadmap to greatness.

 

The writers of the Bible issue similar timeless advice, however the historical facts become unclear with layers of custom, tradition and translation.  Studying the romantic writers helped me to better understand the teachings of the Bible with an added historical reality.  The Bible is the most translated, copied, and read book in the history of the world.  Why?  This project forced me to deal with the question of why no one needs the accurate pictures, the accurate words, no historical proof, and have never asked the most basic questions about the birth, life and death of Jesus and other figures central to the birth of Christianity.  The research leads me to one conclusion.  The figures, no matter who they were have stood the test of time.  They must have been potent for their stories to have been told and re-told for so many generations and across so many cultures.  The sources themselves must have been extraordinary.  Both the romantic writers and the Christian writers shared more than depth in their work.  It is not a depth where people gather and listen and walk away saying "that was deep", and go on about their daily routine.  No, their words, work, and writing seemed to have the power to empower men to demonstrable power and appears to penetrate the recipients to the depths of their souls.  They share a deep feeling for their cause and an even deeper love for their students.  Jesus and John had such a relationship, as did Emerson and the younger Thoreau.  Like Plato to Socrates, both John and Thoreau were significant in making certain that the message of their great teachers went out and went out correctly and accurately.

 

The most important characteristics that binds these great figures and many others, is that their thinking was (and is) transformative.   They are fearless in their convictions.  Prison is a forgone conclusion for them.  The punishment of there respective days did not stop them from carrying on with their God-given purpose.  Thoreau was most succinct in his love of and disagreement with the government.  He took the most public positions against the government in issues of slavery, the Mexican American war, and even John Brown, who was the most popular and feared abolitionist of his day.  All were not afraid to suffer for their beliefs; I think that it would have been more suffering for them to conform to the norms of their time.  They were not angry revolters for the sake of revolt.  They loved man, but saw the enslavement of the humans.  They could not stand by and let it happen.  They knew that "Nature" was the only true state where man could really reach full freedom potential.  Most people think of animals, plants, and weather when nature is mentioned. But, the writers have helped me to understand that it means so much more. On nature, Emerson says "No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature".  This speaks to the deepest honesty, and honesty shared by the founders of modern Christianity and the romantics. 

 

Thoreau in his timeless essay "Civil Disobedience", which is the blueprint for some of most famous and successful peaceful revolutionaries including Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi, gave the most eloquent instructions on rebellion against the an ineffective government.   Emerson shunned false etiquette for his inner voice, his nature, his God voice.  He states, "I shun mother, father, wife, and brother when my genius calls me".  Likewise, when Jesus was told that his mother and brother were outside the door looking for him he said, “My mother and brother and sister are those that do the work of my Father.” 

 

These giants in history give us instructions on living a better and fuller life.  Their examples, deeds, and words are even more important today.  As we move faster with everything from food preparation to communication, the romantics and the founding Christians ask me to stop, breathe, feel and live.  Because of them, I am aware of the patience of nature, I can look and the sky and smile, appreciate the bird, and appreciate the day on my own terms.   

 

 

Bibliography

Websites:

1.  http://libproxy.uhcl.edu:2090/universe

 

2.  The main BELIEVE web-page (and the index to subjects) is at http://mb-soft.com/believe/indexaz.html

3.  http://mb-soft.com/believe/txc/puritani.htm

4.  an article by Jone Johnson Lewis, Women's History Guide http://womenshistory.about.com/bltranscend.htm

5.  http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-134,pageNum-49.html

Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4355

Books:

6. Barbour, James and Thomas Quirk."A National Literature and Romantic Individualism." in Romanticism. eds. NY: Garland, 1986, 3-24.

7.  Avani, Abraham Albert.  The Bible and Romanticism. Paris:  Mouthon, 1969. 

8.  Lindberg, David C. The Beginnings of Western Science The University of Chicago Press 1992. 

8.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature Shorter 6th Edition, 2003 W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

9.  Bartel Roland ed. James S. Ackerman, Thayer S. Warshaw. Biblical Images in Literature. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975.