Also known as “Transcendentalism”
Early-Mid 19 th Century
Evolution to Light Romanticism
(Transcendentalism)
Dark
Romanticism
Imagination,
Madness, Neg.
Emotion
Light
Romanticism
Seeks
Inspiration,
Pos. Emotion
Intuition,
Nonconformity
Puritanism
Age of Reason
Faith
Reason, Logic
Authority
Skepticism
Intuition,
Mystery,
Unknown
Theology
Science
Dreams,
Supernatural
Nature (divine)
Pre-destiny
Self-Made
Curses,
Omens, Fate
Self-Reliance
 Transcendence
 Simplicity
 Confidence
What does this look like in
Walden or Self-Reliance?
 Possibility
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine –
and shadows will fall behind you.”
- Walt Whitman
 Divine within
 Individualism
What does this look like in
Walden or Self-Reliance?
 Self, not society
The soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend, -
Or the most agonizing spy
An enemy could send.
- Emily Dickinson
Nature  transcendence
 Pantheism
 Truth
What does this look like in
Walden or Self-Reliance?
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
- Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
 Dependence on self
 True to the divine
What does this look like in
Walden or Self-Reliance?
The Soul selects her own Society –
Then – shuts the Door –
To her divine Majority –
Present no more –
- Emily Dickinson, The Soul Selects Her Own Society
Heroes and Writers
Mental Stability/
Personal
Relationships
Conflicted and unstable,
depressed
Conflicted with society
but stable
Societal
Relationships
Loner (doesn’t fit in),
Misunderstood/doesn’t
fit into society (thinks
differently e.g. Poe)
Loner by choice,
prefers to be
Misunderstood (thinks
differently e.g. hippies)
Spirituality
Spiritual (dark arts,
spirits)
Talented or gifted in
some way (intelligence,
highly creative)
dark creativity &
imagination not
society’s expectations
Talents
Inspiration
God surrounds us,
simplicity
gifted , intelligence
Light/natural creativity &
imagination rather than
society expectations
 Civil Disobedience
 Walden
“The mass of men lead lives
of quiet desperation."
- Walden
 Self-Reliance
 Nature
Standing on the bare
ground, — my head bathed
by the blithe air, and uplifted
into infinite space, — all
mean egotism vanishes. I
become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all;
the currents of the Universal
Being circulate through me;
I am part or particle of God.
- Nature