Transcendentalism

1820-1860

Transcendentalism

Movement was based on belief in the unity of the world and God.

The ideas of self-reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God.

Where?

Connected closely with Concord, Massachusetts

Concord was surrounded by forests. Although it was where the first shots of the revolution were fired almost 50 years earlier, Concord was a peaceful artists community during the Transcendentalist period.

Concord and Transcendentalism

Concord offered a spiritual and cultural alternative to American materialism.

High minded conversation mixed with simple living.Authors who lived or visited there include:Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Fuller.

Beliefs

Transcendentalists never issued a manifesto. They insisted on individual differences and points of view.

Pushed radical individualism to the extreme. Their idea of a hero was one who risked destruction in the pursuit of self-discovery.

Beliefs Continued

Nothing was a given. Literary styles and conventions were not helpful but viewed as dangerous.

Pressure was to discover a new authentic literary voice.

Famous Authors- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Considered a radical. Was banned from his alma mater, Harvard Divinity School, for saying that “to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the church.”

Accused the church of acting “as if God were dead” and emphasizing rules while killing the spirit.

Called for the birth of American individualism inspired by nature.

Famous Authors- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Born in Concord. Like Emerson, was from a poor family and worked his way through Harvard.

Non-conformist and reduced his needs to the simplest level and lived on very little money and maintaining his independence.

Two most famous works were Walden and Civil Disobedience. Walden was about living life simply in the wild surviving on only what nature provides.

Thoreau - Continued

Civil Disobedience centers around the idea of passive resistance based on the moral need for just individuals to disobey unjust laws.

Inspired Gandhi’s Indian Independence movement roughly 70 years later and Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights struggle 100 years later.