AntiTranscendentalism
Reasons and Causes
• Opposed the optimism and naïve idealism of
the transcendentalists
• Dwelt on guilt and remorse over past sins
• Discontented with current circumstances in
America (poverty/unjust and cruel treatment
of factory workers, poor educational system,
lack of women’s rights, slavery…) so they
focused on moral dilemmas and society’s ills
Key Ideas/Philosophy
• “Puritanically dark view of human
nature and fate”
• People are basically evil and apathetic
to matters that don’t effect them
• Nature is indifferent to mankind
• It is vast and incomprehensible, a reflection of the struggle
between good and evil
• It is the creation and possession of God and it cannot be
understood by human beings
Key Ideas/Philosophy cont…
• Belief in the potential destructiveness of
the human spirit
• Belief in individual truths, but no
universal truths, and the truths of
existence are deceitful and disturbing
• Evil is an active force in the universe
• Focus on the man’s uncertainty and
limitations in the universe
Transcendentalists
vs.
Anti-Transcendentalists
• Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau) had an
optimistic view of nature and human nature
o
o
God found in nature, so nature = good
Nature = truth
• Anti-Transcendentalists had pessimistic view of
nature and human nature
o
o
Nature = indifferent to mankind
Human nature = hypocritical, apathetic
A House Divided
Anti-transcendentalists
• Realists
• Experience
• Spirituality based on
Puritanism/Calvinism
• Nature is indifferent;
Man is evil
• Man’s dark side
• Suspicious of science
and technology
Transcendentalists
• Idealists/Individualist
• Intuition
• Everything is a reflection of
the divine soul
• Nature is good; even
Man is good
• Man and Nature in
partnership
• Embraces science as
part of nature
Writing Style
• Man vs. Nature conflicts bring out the evil in
humanity
• Raw and morbid diction
• Focus on the protagonist’s inner struggles
• Typical protagonists are haunted outsiders
who are alienated from society
• Prevalent use of symbolism
The Anti-Transcendentalists
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
People are hypocrites
Shows pathos for those in society who suffer from
being truthful (e.g., Hester Prynne)
o “Be true! Be true! Be true!”
o
o
• Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Billy Budd,
Redburn
Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864
“As the moral gloom
of the world
overpowers all
systematic gaiety,
even so was their
home of wild mirth
made desolate amid
the sad forest.”
– “The Maypole of Merrymount
“(1836)
The Anti-Transcendentalists
“All men live enveloped in
whale-lines. All are born
with halters round their
necks; but it is only when
caught in the swift,
sudden turn of death, that
mortals realize the silent,
subtle, ever-present perils
of life.” --Moby Dick
Herman Melville (1819 - 1891)
•
•
•
•
Wrote many tales of sea adventures
Sailed as a whaler in South Seas
Jumped ship at the Marquesas Islands and
lived with cannibal tribe (also in Tahiti)
Novels focused on sailors’ difficulty to act as
an individual within their institution (symbolic of
man in society and nature)
Herman Melville: Works
• Moby Dick (1851) - Captain
Ahab seeks revenge on a
massive sperm whale that bit
his leg off (man vs. nature)
• Pequod’s crew are subjected
to Ahab’s monomaniacal
quest for revenge (man vs.
man)
• “Call me Ishmael” - narrator is
only survivor of the story
Herman Melville: Works
• Billy Budd, Sailor (1891) A good sailor is executed
by his commanders for
another sailor’s crime
• Portrays the routine
injustice of human
existence
• Life is unfair and
unforgiving
Herman Melville: Redburn (1849)
• Adventures of young
Wellingborough Redburn as
a “ship’s boy” on an
American merchant vessel
• Implores us to think of
man’s evil nature
• Humans are indifferent to
the suffering of other
humans
• Questions purpose of life