Name: _____________________________
Date: ______________________________
Transcendentalism WebQuest
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and
absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Step one: Gain a basic understanding of Transcendentalism.
http://www.dictionary.com
1. Define the term “transcendental.”
transcendent, surpassing, or superior.
being beyond ordinary or common experience, thought, or belief;
supernatural.
http://www.answers.com/topic/transcendentalism
2. What is Transcendentalism?
A literary and philosophical movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret
Fuller, asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and
scientific and is knowable through intuition.
3. What authors are associated with this movement?
Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Thoreau
4. What century did this movement take place in?
19th (1800’s)
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/transcend.html
The Transcendentalists stood at the heart of The American Renaissance-- the flowering of our
nation's thought in literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, and music in the period
roughly designated from 1835-1880.
5. What area of the U.S. did this movement begin in?
Massachusetts (Concord)
6. The term Transcendentalism was derived from the philosopher Kant, who called "all knowledge
transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects."
Name: _____________________________
Date: ______________________________
7. Emerson attempted to define the philosophy in simple terms as "What is popularly called
Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842." But it is much
larger and more complex than that. How is it described further along in this paragraph?
that the spark of divinity lies within man; that everything in the world is a microcosm of existence; that
the individual soul is identical to the world soul, or Over-Soul, as Emerson called it. This belief in the
Inner Light led to an emphasis on the authority of the Self--to Walt Whitman's I , to the Emersonian
doctrine of Self-Reliance, to Thoreau's civil disobedience, and to the Utopian communities at Brook
Farm and Fruitlands. By meditation, by communing with nature, through work and art, man could
transcend his senses and attain an understanding of beauty and goodness and truth.
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/club.html
8. What was the Transcendentalist club?
Gathering of unsatisfied thinkers, protest against academia of Harvard and Cambridge
9. How/why/where did it develop?
Boston, started with George Putnam, George Ripley, Emerson planning a symposium, to protest the
state of American thought at the time
10. How difficult was it to become a member of this club?
Not at all – just show up
11. Who called the first-ever meeting of this club?
Emerson
Step two: Explore several figures from the Transcendentalist movement.
Write 3 to 4 sentences in regards to what you learned about each author.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/emerson.html
Henry David Thoreau: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/thoreau.html
Walt Whitman: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/whitman.html
Emily Dickinson: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/poet/dickinson.html
Name: _____________________________
Date: ______________________________
Step three: Complete the chart below:
1. Read each characteristic of the Transcendentalist movement. In the appropriate column,
explain in your own words what the characteristic means.
2. Visit http://www.poets.org. Find a poem that you like from one of the authors you
researched above. Copy and paste it below.
3. Find examples of the characteristics in your chosen poem and complete the appropriate
columns in the chart. You may not find all five characteristics in a single poem – remember, a
work does not have to have all of the characteristics to be considered Transcendentalist, just
some of them.
Characteristics of
Your definition of the
Example from a
Transcendentalism
characteristic
Transcendentalist poem
Nonconformity
not adhering to rules and
standards of the time
Self-reliance
Depending only on one’s self,
being independent
Free Thought
Ability and desire to think for
one’s self, not just go along
with the group
Confidence
Strong belief in self
Importance of
Nature
Appreciate nature’s beauty
and bounty