1
Transcendentalism
A literary, intellectual and social movement
advocating spiritual ideals that “transcend”
the physical world. It asserts that God is
realized by means of intuition and through
nature, but not through books or doctrines of
any established religion.
2
Transcendentalism
New England 1803-1882
Emily
Hawthorne
Whitman
Melville
3
Transcendentalism
• A revolution in human consciousness.
A “miracle of enthusiasm”.
A critique of old religious attitudes.
• It’s when spirituality, ethics and politics
meet in the pursuit of social reform.
It’s the belief that people are inspired by
their relationship to nature.
• It empowers the individual.
4
Transcendentalism
Four major sources of influence:
Vedic Philosophy of India
German Idealism
English Romanticism
The American Landscape
5
Vedic Philosophy
&
Spiritual self-discipline
Seek direct knowledge of God
Knowledge is gained by intuition
God is the Supreme Self
God is the ground of all Being
6
Romanticism
A broad cultural movement in
Germany, England and
America that emphasized the
value of emotion, the
importance of human
connections to nature and the
right to question all forms of
social, political and religious
authority.
7
German Idealism
Kant, Ficte, Schelling & Hegel
They linked Romanticism to the revolutionary politics of
the Enlightenment
Free Will
Self-Reliance
Immortality of the Soul
Freedom of the human
Spirit
Cultural Authenticity
8
Nature
ape
symbolizes
the Spirit.
9
Transcendentalist themes
• Intuition
Imagination
• Conscience
Self-awareness
• Spontaneity
Divine Inspiration
• National Identity
The Soul
10
“America shall introduce a pure religion.”
Emerson
Old-Testament sin & guilt
Rigid Orthodoxy
Authoritarianism
Justifications for slavery
Mediocrity
Mindless Conformity
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Transcendentalist Values
“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are
but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
— Thoreau
Simple Living,
Frugality
Harmony with nature
The right of individual to
self-government
The sacredness of Life
12
Declaration of
Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed.”
13
“Our defense is in the
preservation of the
spirit which prizes
liberty as a heritage of
all men, in all lands,
everywhere. Destroy
this spirit and you have
planted the seeds of
despotism all around
you.”
Lincoln
14
Southern aristocracy
wealthy oligarchs.
Lincoln fights treason
militant rebellion
*
America’s northern &
southern commercial
infrastructure was
connected.
*
The east coast:
Cotton/textile Industry,
shipping industry and
the banking industry.
15
Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to
dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and
dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long
remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a
new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
16
“My dream is of a place and a time where
America will once again be seen as the last
best hope of earth.”
Lincoln