• Who are these four
individuals? What do
they have in
common?
Transcend
• Defined: to go
beyond
• To go beyond what?
– There must be an
understanding of what
comes before, or the
ordinary, or conformity
• Transcending
requires something
more than what is
already there, right?
What does
“Transcendentalism” mean?
• Calling on people to view the objects in the
world as small versions of the whole universe
and to trust their individual intuitions.
• A loose collection of eclectic ideas about
literature, philosophy, religion, social reform,
and the general state of American culture.
Where did it come from?
• Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that
developed in the 1830s and 1840s in New England
• It began as a protest to the general state of culture
and society
• Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the
inherent goodness of both people and nature.
• Transcendentalists believed that society and its
institutions—particularly organized religion and political
parties—ultimately corrupted the purity of the
individual.
Transcendentalism in simple
terms
• Individuals should strive to go beyond the
ordinary
• Every individual is capable of imaginative
power, of becoming extraordinary
• One becomes extraordinary by means of
the soul, not the senses – intuition
• Individuals should follow intuition instead
of the rules of society
• A divine spirit connects everything in
nature (Oversoul)
Transcendentalism in simple
terms
• The Oversoul unifies human beings and
Nature.
• Acting on all of this will allow humans to
live deliberately.
Who were the Transcendentalists?
(3 cool dudes!)
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• Walt Whitman
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 - 1882
• Minister who felt the church was too
conservative
• Founded the Transcendental Club
• Gave a speech at Harvard which banished
him for 30 years
• Mentor and friend to Thoreau
• Emerson urged students to learn directly
from life. He told them, "Life is our
dictionary”
• In a speech called "Self-Reliance" Ralph
Waldo Emerson told his listeners, "Believe
your own thoughts, believe that what is true
for you in your private heart is true for all
men."
Henry David Thoreau 1817 - 1862
• Best known for Walden, a
reflection upon simple living in
natural surroundings
• The essay, Civil Disobedience,
was an argument for individual
resistance to the government in
moral opposition to an unjust
state
• Thrown in jail for not paying a
tax
• Lived by himself in the woods
for two years
Walt Whitman 1819-1892
• Began work as a
printer; fell in love
with words
• Continued as
teacher
• Ended as
journalist, all the
time writing poetry
• Published Leaves
of Grass
Thoreau’s
cabin in
Walden
Woods