American Transcendentalism
1830-1860
Backgrounds for Walden
Origins: Romanticism
• European Movement
• Emotion is central, “Beyond the
rational.”
• Byron, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth
some of the major writers associated
with the movement.
• Heavily influenced by the French
Revolution (1789).
• Influenced by the Industrial
Revolution
• At this time, America heavily
influenced by Europe in the arts.
Influences: German Transcendentalism
• Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason): called “all
knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with
object, but with our mode of knowing them.”
• Kant believed that the world appears in the form it
does to us and is apprehended by the structure of the
mind. That is, certain categories exist in the mind
before consciousness.
• The American Transcendentalists were not familiar
with their German precursors first-hand.
• We have a blend of the Romantics and the German
Transcendentalists in the American manifestation of it.
Reactions Against…
• Lockean Theory: Philosophically, the
transcendentalists rejected the empiricist view
of the world. That is, we begin with a tabula
rasa (clean slate of a mind), and the only way
that we can create impressions on the mind if
through perception or the senses.
• Berkeley: “If a tree falls in the woods…”
• Sensualism as the only way to create
experience or “know a thing.”
And Reactions Against…
• The Unitarian Church. Accepted the Lockean idea,
teaching that God and His laws are apprehended
through rational reflection on natural creation
and the revelations of scripture.
• For young radical Unitarians, this doctrine
seemed inadequate because it cut people off
from God.
• Emerson and Thoreau were chief figures in the
movement.
Resulting Theory!
• The Transcendentalists developed a conceptual
distinction between understanding and reason.
Reason, for them, is a higher mental faculty that
allows one to perceive spiritual truth intuitively.
• Some called it spirit, mind, or soul.
• The movement also stressed a certain liberalism
(individualism), a separation from societal law or
concept of political community.
• Rejection of pure rationalism for intuition and
feeling (notice the fusion of Romantic and
Transcendental terms).
Transcendentalism
In Sum
1.
General Principles
•
•
•
•
•
•
2.
Humans can transcend to a
higher spiritual place.
This takes place through
intuition, not reason.
This takes place through or in
nature, not society.
That which is required to know
things is inside each of us.
Therefore, the past, family, or
society aren’t required.
Habit and tradition impede
insight.
American Literature doesn’t
need the forms and traditions of
Europe. This concept was
reiterated through Whitman and
others.
Chief Works
•
•
Emerson, “Nature” (1836)
Thoreau, Walden (1854).