Name:
Divya parmar
Paper:
The American Literature
Roll number: 5
Enrollment number:
4069206420210024
Email id:
divyaparmar07012@gmail.com
Batch:
2021-23 M. A. Sem-2
Submitted to:
S. B. Gardi department of English Maharaja krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar university.
➡️ Points to ponder:
What is Transcendentalism?
Transcendentalism's effect upon America.
The transcendental club
Ralph Waldo Emerson as Transcendentalist.
Transcendentalism
➡️what is Transcendentalism?
Transcendentalism is an American philosophy which was introduced around the 1830s. The philosophy of transcendentalism originated in Unitarianism, the predominant religious movement in Boston in the early 19th century. Unitarianism was a liberal Christian sect that emphasized rationality, reason, and intellectualism; it was especially popular at Harvard.
Transcendentalism was an idealistic literary and philosophical movement of the mid-19th century. Beginning in New England in 1836, various visionaries, intellectuals, scholars, and writers would come together regularly to discuss spiritual ideas. The Boston newspapers, which advertised their meetings, called the group the Transcendentalists. In this video, we will explore the main ideas of Transcendentalism, along with some of the key figures of this important American literary movement.
The Transcendentalists were radical thinkers. At the time of their meetings, New England was still holding on to a remnant of Puritanical values. There was a sense that organized religion had authority over one's personal life and individual choices. For the Transcendentalists, this was a big no-no! They were quite critical of conformity, or forcing one's behavior to match social expectations or standards. They were nonconformists - people who do not conform to a generally accepted pattern of thought or action. They rejected common ideas and practices, particularly organized religion. There wasn't a Transcendentalist church or a holy book of Transcendentalism. Instead, there were regular meetings for lively conversation and a shared hope of cultivating a modern, fluid, and personal sense of spirituality.
The Transcendentalists believed that for every person there exists a private relationship between the self and the universe. In fact, they believed that each person carries the universe within himself. They thought that every individual has a universal soul, referred to as 'The Eternal One.' Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist and poet, was at the center of the Transcendentalist movement. He explained the idea of the universal soul by stating that 'within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty; to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.' Basically, Emerson is saying that all of the world, its knowledge and splendor, lives within us. This certainly sounds like an idea that might be discussed on Oprah's couch!
In addition to the universal soul, the Transcendentalists believed in intuitive thought, which is the ability to know something through instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning. They believed that one should guide her life by what she feels to be true. We've all had flashes of intuition: grabbing an umbrella on a perfectly sunny day or sensing that someone's about to call right before the phone rings. The Transcendentalists believed that these flashes of intuition were the most fundamental form of knowledge. Intuition should have precedence over the intellect, according to the Transcendentalists, because intuition was provided by the universal soul.
Transcendentalism was really a hodgepodge of ideas. The Transcendentalists were very well read and borrowed from Puritanism (the bits they liked), German Idealism, Eastern religions, and more. They merged and fused concepts, creating a flexible set of values. They valued simplicity, a life not bound to material possessions. They valued self-reliance, or a reliance on one's own powers and resources rather than those of others, and trust in one's own heart and thoughts. They valued openness, openness to the beauty of the world.
➡️ Transcendentalism's effect upon American literature:
The impact of Transcendentalism on American literature can easily be seen today. For example, I think immediately of Elizabeth Gilbert's bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love. In the book, Gilbert goes on a journey both physically and spiritually. Recently divorced, she finds self-reliance. She comes to value the beauty of the everyday (pasta!). She meditates, hoping to connect with the 'Eternal One' within her. The Transcendentalists, particularly Emerson, perpetuated the idea that writers are seers. It's the writer's duty to see the world clearly, to summon the world to life. Emerson called poets 'liberating gods.' Literature was a platform to liberate people, to help them see what needs to be seen: nature, spirituality, self-identity, and social injustice. The Transcendentalists were forceful critics of slavery and gender inequality. In transcendental theory, every individual has to be respected because every individual has a universal soul.
Transcendentalists also placed significant emphasis on imagination. Imagination allows the mind to be resourceful, to form new ideas that are not present to the senses. As the writer or reader imagines, he transcends himself. This allows him to move beyond his personal experience, his mind and body, to consider something anew. The ability to imagine can effect change. The Transcendentalists wanted their work to have an altering effect on individuals and on society as a whole. For the Transcendentalists, man needed to live in the world, participate in it, look at it closely, and take action.
➡️ Transcendental club :
“The Transcendental Club,” as it would come to be known, was founded in Massachusetts, in September of 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the primary practitioner of the movement, as well as his contemporaries, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, are featured in our November 13 19th & 20th Century Literature sale. On September 12, 1836, four Harvard University alumni—writer and Bangor, Maine, minister Frederic Henry Hodge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Unitarian ministers George Ripley and George Putnam—left a celebration of the bicentennial of Harvard to meet at Willard’s Hotel in Cambridge.
The purpose was to follow up on correspondence between Hodge and Emerson and to talk about the state of Unitarianism and what they could do about it. One week later, the four met again at Ripley’s house in Boston. This was a meeting of a much larger group that included many Unitarian ministers, intellectuals, writers and reformers. There would be 30 more meetings of what was called “the Transcendental Club” over the next four years, featuring a shifting membership that always included Emerson, Ripley, and Hodge.
The only rule the meetings followed was that no one would be allowed to attend if their presence prevented the group from discussing a topic. Emerson’s essay “Nature,” published in 1836, presented Transcendentalist philosophy as it had formed in the club meetings.
➡️ Ralph Waldo Emerson as Transcendentalist:
He was born On May 25, 1803, He was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson was born, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. He disseminated his philosophical thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures.On September 8, 1836, while attending Harvard’s bicentennial celebration, Emerson met at Willard’s Hotel in Cambridge with his friends Henry Hedge, George Putnam (a Unitarian minister), and George Ripley to plan a symposium for people who, like themselves, found the present state of thought in America unsatisfactory. They were also moved by the stale intellectual climate of Harvard and Cambridge. President Quincy had his eye on the past; theirs was on the present and future. Almost two weeks later, on September 19, the first meeting of what came to be known as the Transcendental Club was born out of protest.
The movement took its name from the German philosopher Kant. It held that there are moral laws which transcend man—that there are absolute truths. Beauty, goodness, wisdom are to the philosopher precisely what heat, motion, and chemical actions are to the physicist. Transcendentalists believed that religion is a primary sentiment in human nature, not merely dependent on certain facts of history. It is poetic, generous, devout, open to all the humanities and sciences, literature, and sympathies of philosophy.
Basically, they held that there are three primary ideas we know intuitively: the ideas of God, duty, and immortality. These need no confirmation from any book or miracles, but are affirmed by humankind’s own divine nature. God is not a being apart from the universe, but everywhere, especially in humans, insofar as our thoughts are infinite. As we reason, God is absolute Reason. “Stand aside,” said Emerson, “and let God think—that is, let the divine within you show through. Duty is taught by the voice within. We know, when we use our highest Reason, what we ought to do. We need no Ten Commandments for that. Men may shirk duty in perilous times, but they still know what their duty is.”
The Transcendental Club’s magazine, The Dial, first appeared in 1840 with Margaret Fuller as editor and George Ripley her assistant. Emerson contributed and edited essays, and became its editor in 1842. Through this vehicle, he encouraged many promising thinkers and writers. His influence on the movement was central.
➡️ Nature : address and lectures1849 by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
As he returned from Europe in 1833, Emerson had already begun to think about the book that would eventually be published under the title Nature. In writing Nature, Emerson drew upon material from his journals, sermons, and lectures. The lengthy essay was first published in Boston by James Munroe and Company in September of 1836. A new edition (also published by Munroe, with Emerson paying the printing costs, his usual arrangement with Munroe) appeared in December of 1849. This second edition was printed from the plates of the collection Nature; Addresses, and Lectures, published by Munroe in September 1849. (The second edition of this collection was published in Boston in 1856 by Phillips, Sampson, under the title Miscellanies; Embracing Nature, Addresses, and Lectures.)
Nature was published in London in 1844 in Nature, An Essay. And Lectures on the Times, by H. G. Clarke and Co. A German edition was issued in 1868. It was included in 1876 in the first volume (Miscellanies) of the Little Classic Edition of Emerson's writings, in 1883 in the first volume (Nature, Addresses, and Lectures) of the Riverside Edition, in 1903 in the first volume (Nature, Addresses, and Lectures) of the Centenary Edition, and in 1971 in the first volume (Nature, Addresses, and Lectures) of the Collected Works published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Nature has been printed in numerous collections of Emerson's writings since its first publication, among them the 1940 Modern Library The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (edited by Brooks Atkinson), the 1965 Signet Classic Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (edited by William H. Gilman), and the 1983 Library of America Essays & Lectures (selected and annotated by Joel Porte).
Emerson prefaced the prose text of the 1836 first edition of Nature with a passage from the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus. The 1849 second edition included instead a poem by Emerson himself. Both present themes that are developed in the essay. The passage from Plotinus suggests the primacy of spirit and of human understanding over nature. Emerson's poem emphasizes the unity of all manifestations of nature, nature's symbolism, and the perpetual development of all of nature's forms toward the highest expression as embodied in man.
Nature is divided into an introduction and eight chapters. In the Introduction, Emerson laments the current tendency to accept the knowledge and traditions of the past instead of experiencing God and nature directly, in the present. He asserts that all our questions about the order of the universe — about the relationships between God, man, and nature — may be answered by our experience of life and by the world around us. Each individual is a manifestation of creation and as such holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. Nature, too, is both an expression of the divine and a means of understanding it. The goal of science is to provide a theory of nature, but man has not yet attained a truth broad enough to comprehend all of nature's forms and phenomena. Emerson identifies nature and spirit as the components of the universe. He defines nature (the "NOT ME") as everything separate from the inner individual — nature, art, other men, our own bodies. In common usage, nature refers to the material world unchanged by man. Art is nature in combination with the will of man. Emerson explains that he will use the word "nature" in both its common and its philosophical meanings in the essay.
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Reference:
Carbone II, Steven A. “American Transcendentalism and Analysis of Ralph Waldo Emerson's ‘Self-Reliance.’” Inquiries Journal, Inquiries Journal, 1 Nov. 2010, http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1663/american-transcendentalism-and-analysis-of-ralph-waldo-emersons-self-reliance.
History.com Editors. “Transcendentalism.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 15 Nov. 2017, https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/transcendentalism.
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