TRANCENDENTALISM
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it
is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the
music he hears.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“To Be Great is to Be Misunderstood”
Religion Sparks Reform
• During the 1820s and 1830s
Americans attended revivals
and joined churches in record
numbers.
• This religious movement was
called the Second Great
Awakening.
• Many preachers preached that
through dedication and hard
work people could create a
kind of heaven on earth.
• Across the country, tens of
thousands of Americans
became determined to reform,
or reshape, American life.
Charles Grandison Finney
(1792–1875), 1834
Religious Camp Meeting, by J. Maze Burbank, 1839
At huge, daylong encampments,
repentant sinners dedicated
themselves to lives of personal
rectitude and social reform.

Fire-and-brimstone preachers like
the one depicted here inspired
convulsions, speaking in tongues,
and ecstatic singing and dancing
among the converted.

Out of this religious upheaval
grew many of the movements for
social improvement in the pre– Civil
War decades, including the
abolitionist crusade.

Reform Era
The Second Great
Awakening helped launch
the Reform Era.
 From 1830 until 1860,
many Americans attempted
to reshape American
society.
 They were called
reformers.

The Second Great Awakening
“Spiritual Reform From Within”
[Religious Revivalism]
Social Reforms & Redefining the
Ideal of Equality
Temperance
Education
Abolitionism
Asylum &
Penal Reform
Women’s
Rights
Temperance Movement
• One of the main goals of the temperance movement
reformers was to reduce the use of alcoholic
beverages.
• Reformers wrote books, plays, and songs about the
evils of alcohol, which they linked to sickness, poverty,
and the breakup of families.
• In 1851 reformers persuaded legislators in the state of
Maine to outlaw alcohol.
• Over the next several years, some 12 states followed
suit.
Education Reform
• Education reformers organized themselves and began
the common-school movement to extend and improve
public schools.
• The greatest school reformer of the Reform Era was
Horace Mann, who advocated a new, highly organized
approach to education.
• Education reform did nothing to help Native American
children or African American children.
• Mann’s school-reform efforts laid the groundwork for
education in the United States to the present day.
The Country School, by Winslow
Homer, 1871
Stark and simple by latter-day standards, the one-room
schoolhouse nevertheless contributed richly to the development
of the young Republic.
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The Women Graduates of
the Oberlin College Class of 1855
Oberlin was the first coeducational institution of higher education in the United
States, accepting women in 1837, two years after it had welcomed African
Americans. By 1872 ninety-seven American universities accepted women. At some
of these institutions, however, women were educated in associated schools, not
alongside male students.
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Women Planting Corn, by Olof
Krans, 1894–1896
The Shakers’ emphasis on simplicity and ingenuity, and their segregation of the
sexes, were captured in this painting of the Bishop Hill community in Illinois. The
prongs on the poles measured the distance between rows, and the knots on the
rope showed the women how far apart to plant the corn.

Reforming Prisons
• Dorothea Dix was a reformer who campaigned for humane
treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill.
• Moved by Dix’s plea, the Massachusetts legislature created
state-supported institutions to house and treat mentally ill
people separate from criminals.
• Dix and her supporters convinced other state governments to
create similar institutions.
• Before Dix began her work, there were no professional
treatment centers in the United States for the mentally ill.
• By the time of her death, more than 100 such institutions were
built across the country.
The Stepping Mill, Auburn Prison, New
York, 1823
Reformers like Dorothea Dix believed that idleness was a scourge and
prescribed rigorous exercise regimens for prisoners. At the experimental
prison in Auburn, chained prisoners were obliged to turn this wheel for
long periods of time.
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Transcendentalism and Utopianism
• Thoreau held that people should act according to their
own beliefs, even if they had to break the law.
• Another reform movement of this era was the utopian
movement.
• Some reformers believed in creating new communities
that would be free of social ills.
• These communities became known as utopian
communities, after the word utopia, which means “a
perfect society.”
What is Transcendentalism?

A loose collection of
eclectic (various sources)
ideas about literature,
philosophy, religion, social
reform, and the general
state of American culture
that flourished during the
middle 19th Century (1836
– 1860).

Transcendentalism had
different meanings for each
person involved in the
movement.
The Oversoul
“The groves were God’s first temples”
– William Cullen Bryant
Individual
God
Nature
“In the faces of men and women I see God”
– Walt Whitman
Not a Religion

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Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalism is not a
religion (in the traditional sense of the word); it is a
pragmatic philosophy, a state of mind, and a form of
spirituality.
It is not a religion because it does not adhere to the three
concepts common in major religions:
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a. a belief in a God;
b. a belief in an afterlife (dualism); and
c. a belief that this life has consequences on the next (if you're
good in this life, you go to heaven in the next, etc.).
Transcendentalism does not reject an afterlife, but its
emphasis is on this life.
Developed in New England 1830s

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Most of the inspiration for this
movement came from Unitarian
ministers, who believed that the
spirit had gone out of the churches
and that religion needed a new
vision.
The proponents claimed that the
invisible spirit is the true reality, and
held that each person is an
extension of a universal spirit, or
“over-soul,” that speaks through
them in a unique and creative way.
They defended the right of each
individual to follow the dictates of
his or her own conscience instead of
established religious authority.
Core Beliefs of
Transcendentalism

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Finding its root in the word
“transcend,” Transcendentalists
believed individuals could
transcend to a higher being of
existence in nature.
God is located in the soul of
each individual.
Humanity’s potential is limitless.
Experience is valued over
scholarship.
Where did it come from?
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Ralph Waldo Emerson gave
German philosopher Immanuel
Kant credit for popularizing the
term “transcendentalism.”
It is not a religion—more
accurately, it is a philosophy or
form of spirituality.
It centered around Boston and
Concord, MA. in the mid-1800’s.
Emerson first expressed his
philosophy of transcendentalism in
his essay Nature.
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The Big Three:
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David Thoreau, and
Margaret Fuller.
TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS

INDIVIDUALISM:
 be
true to one’s own inner perception
or intuition
If I know it is truth, then it is truth.
Self-realization through Self-reliance
The belief that individual
virtue and happiness depend
upon self-realization
Emerson and the
Transcendentalists led
the search for truth
- in nature
- through
self-reliance
TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS

OPTIMISTIC:
 all
is good
evil is an illusion
TRANSCENDENTAL BELIEFS

UNLIMITED POTENTIAL OF EACH
INDIVIDUAL
set high goals to improve
NATURE IS TRUTH

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it can be a guide to higher understanding
Nature symbolizes God
or the inner life of human beings
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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1803-1882
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Unitarian minister

Poet and essayist

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Founded the Transcendental
Club
Popular lecturer
Banned from Harvard for 40
years following his Divinity
School address
Supporter of abolitionism
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
Public lecturing provided a way for Emerson to put his ideas before a larger audience
than his readers and to support his family. His philosophical observations included such
statements as “The less government we have, the better—the fewer laws, and the less
confided power”; “To be great is to be misunderstood”; “Every hero becomes a bore at
last”; “Shallow men believe in luck”; and “When you strike a king, you must kill him.”
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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There is a time in every man's education
when he arrives at the conviction that envy is
ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he
must take himself for better, for worse, as his
portion;…The power which resides in him is
new in nature, and none but he knows what
that is which he can do, nor does he know
until he has tried.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance,"
Essays, First Series, 1841.
Ralph Waldo Emerson “Man the Reformer” (January 25, 1841)
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Emerson Lecturing
In September 1835, Emerson founded the
Transcendental Club with notables like Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Hoar
and Margaret Fuller
In 1840, Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and George
Ripley founded the magazine, The Dial, with
Margaret Fuller editing
 The Dial became the leading mouthpiece for
the transcendental movement
 Emerson, its editor for two years, began
publishing his poems and essays in the
magazine
By the 1840s, Emerson became recognized as the
leader of the Transcendental movement
In addition to his writings, Emerson made a living
as a popular lecturer in New England
 Emphasized self-reliance and nonconformity,
he championed authentic American
literature, and insisted that each individual
find their own relation to God
Emerson’s Transparent Eyeball
In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I
feel that nothing can befal me in life-–no disgrace, no
calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot
repair. 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 particle of
God.
—Emerson, Nature
(p. 884)
Man as a Reformer

“. . . man as a reformer. . . our life .
. . is common and mean . . . yet . . .
each person . . . has felt his own
call to cast aside all evil customs . .
. and to be in his place a free and
helpful man, a reformer, a
benefactor, not content to slip
along through the world like a
footman or a spy . . . but a brave
and upright man, who must find
or cut a straight road to everything
excellent in the earth, and not
only go honorably himself, but
make it easier for all who follow
him, to go in honor and with
benefit”
Concord Hymn
Sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument
April 19, 1836
BY the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Ralph Waldo Emerson “The Transcendentalist” (January 1842)


Emerson developed a distinctly American strand of philosophy that
emphasized optimism, individuality, and mysticism
In religious matters, Emerson rejected the belief in a personal God and
developed non-traditional ideas of soul and God

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He asserted that, in the individual, all truth can be discovered

Ralph Waldo Emerson
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He emphasized individualism and each person's quest to break free from
the trappings of the world of the senses in order to discover the godliness
of the inner Self
He also stressed self-reliance and independence and his emphasis on nonconformity profoundly effected Henry David Thoreau
Nature was also essential to Transcendentalism


He asserted in the essential unity of all thoughts, persons, and things in the
divine whole
According to Emerson, what is beyond nature is revealed through nature;
nature is itself a symbol, or an indication of a deeper reality
“The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual
doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the
human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration,
and in ecstasy . . . the spiritual measure of inspiration is the depth of
the thought . . . so he resists all attempts to palm other rules and
measures on the spirit than its own”
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Tragic” (1844)


In this essay Emerson outlines the tragic elements
of human life
According to Emerson, people should accept the
fact that life contains pain, disappointment and
frustration

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
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Yet it is possible to obtain happiness despite life’s
tragic moments
For Emerson, the development of personal
conscience yields perspective and ultimately
personal contentment
“He has seen but half the universe who never
has been shown the House of Pain. As the salt
sea covers more than two thirds of the surface of
the globe, so sorrow encroaches in man on
felicity . . . the prevalent hue of things to the
eye of leisure is melancholy. . . Melancholy
cleaves to the English mind in both hemispheres .
. . no theory of life can have any right, which
leaves out of account the values of vice, pain,
disease, poverty, insecurity, disunion, fear, and
death.”
Henry David Thoreau

1817-1862 - Schoolteacher, essayist, poet

Most famous for Walden and Civil Disobedience

Influenced environmental movement

Supporter of abolitionism

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow
of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put
to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath
and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and
reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be
mean, why then to get the whole and genuine
meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the
world; or if it were sublime, to know it by
experience, and be able to give a true account of
it… Henry David Thoreau,
"Where I Lived, and What I Lived for,“ from Walden;
or, Life in the Woods
Meet it and Live it!!

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However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is
not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find
fault even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant
thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.” Henry David Thoreau.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts
of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to
front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and
not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was
not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite
necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily
and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave
close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be
mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to
the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true
account of it. ” Henry David Thoreau.
Walden, Journal Entry

April 24. Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the
forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch
yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward
another land. Thee is no other land; there is not other life
but this, or the like of this. Where the good husbandman is,
there is the good soil. Take any other course, and life will be
a succession of regrets. Let us see vessels sailing
prosperously before the wind, and not simply stranded
barks. There is no world for the penitent and regretful.
Henry David Thoreau “Civil Disobedience” (1849)

Although he could never make a living from his writings, Thoreau’s
work now comprises over 20 volumes


His writing is rich and complex and intended to nudge readers to
reconsider the beliefs that make up their lives
Politically, Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist





He opposed the U.S government’s war against Mexico, which he
believed was merely a ruse to extend slavery
In 1846, Thoreau was imprisoned after he refused to pay taxes in
protest against the Mexican War
Consequently, he wrote “Civil Disobedience” where he justified
nonviolent resistance to the government out of moral principles
For him, morality was more important than society’s laws at any given
time and political institutions should be considered with skepticism
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the
least degree, resign his conscience to the
legislator? Why has every man a conscience
then? I think that we should be men first, and
subjects afterward. It is not desirable to
cultivate a respect for the law, so much as
for the right. The only obligation which I
have a right to assume is to do at any time
what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau: Walden (1854)

From 1845-1847, Thoreau embarked on a two-year
experiment in simple living by living in an isolated log
cabin on land owned by Emerson


His intent was to isolate himself from society in order to
reexamine its values and practices and his role within it
In 1854, Thoreau published an account of this period
entitled “Walden,” which became one of the great
classics of American literature; indeed of world
literature

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It offers a social critique of the West with its emphasis on
consumerism and its widespread destruction of the natural
environment
The book invites one to the examine one’s life and to the
realization of one's potential
Walden Pond
Henry David Thoreau
A Modern Replica of Thoreau’s Walden
Cabin
Walden
“I went to the woods
because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only
the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not
learn what it had to
teach, and not, when I
came to die, discover that
I had not lived. “
“It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person,
‘Always do what you are afraid to do.’” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Speak what you think now in
hard words and tomorrow
speak what tomorrow thinks in
hard words again, though it
contradict every thing you said
today. – ‘Ah, so you shall be
sure to be misunderstood.” –
Is it so bad then to be
misunderstood? Pythagoras
was misunderstood, and
Socrates, and Jesus, and
Luther, and Copernicus, and
Galileo, and Newton, and
every pure and wise spirit that
ever took flesh. To be great is
to be misunderstood.”
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
The Oxbow – Thomaas Cole
This rendering of the oxbow of the Connecticut River
near Northampton, Massachusetts, after a
thunderstorm is considered one of Cole’s (1801–
1848) masterpieces. A leader of the so-called
Hudson River school, Cole wandered on foot over the
mountains and rivers of New York State and New
Eng land, making pencil studies from which he
painted in his studio during the winter. He and other
members of this group transformed their realistic
sketches into lyrical, romantic celebrations of the
beauty of the American wilderness.
“It is true, I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so
helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and
impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths
which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be
the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition
and conformity.”
“Civil
Disobedience”


Thoreau’s essay
urging passive,
nonviolent resistance
to governmental
policies to which an
individual is morally
opposed
Influenced
individuals such as
Gandhi, Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. &
Cesar Chavez
Tiananmen Square, China
June 7th, 1989
“Civil Disobedience”
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
“That government is best which governs
least…That government is best which governs not
at all.”
“I ask for, not at once no government, but at once
a better government.”
“I cannot for an instant recognize that political
organization as my government which is the
slave’s government also.”
“Under a government which
imprisons any unjustly, the true
place for a just man is also a
prison…It is there that the
fugitive slave, and the
Mexican prisoner on parole,
and the Indian come to plead
the wrongs of the race should
find them..”
“If a thousand men were
not to pay their tax-bills
this year, that would not
be a violent and bloody
measure, as it would be
to pay them, and enable
the State to commit
violence and shed
innocent blood. This is,
in fact, the definition of
a peaceable
revolution…”
Amos Bronson Alcott
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1799-1888

Teacher and writer

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Introduced art, music, P.E., nature study,
and field trips; banished corporal
punishment
Father of novelist Louisa May Alcott
One of Alcott’s most well known works is his “General
Maxims” for teachers.
Alcott was among the first to assign a great measure
of respect and dignity to this profession, and he
attempted many practices which today would be
considered quite commonplace, but in his time were
deemed deranged and dangerous.
Bronson Alcott's Maxims on Education (1826-1827)

Amos Bronson Alcott: teacher and writer

Attempted to embody his ideals

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Founded a Utopian community, Fruitlands, in Harvard,
Massachusetts, which only lasted a short time
In 1826-1827, Alcott wrote General Maxims for teachers

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His maxims represent cautions and advice to teachers as to their role in and
influence upon young minds in the classroom
They display Alcott's love for and devotion to children, and his belief in the
ability of children to think for themselves

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
Amos Bronson Alcott


In his schools he introduced art, music, nature study, field trips,
and physical education into the curriculum, while banishing
corporal punishment
He encouraged children to ask questions and taught through
dialogue and example
“21. To teach, gradually and understandingly, by the shortest
steps, from the more easy and known, to the more difficult
and unknown”
“26. To teach, by simple and plain unambiguous language”
“37. To teach, endeavoring to make pupils feel their
importance by the hope which mankind placed in their
conduct”
“52. To teach, pupils to teach themselves”
Attempted many practices which today would be considered
commonplace, but in his time were seen as dangerous
The true teacher defends his pupils against his
own personal influence.

The fifty-eight maxims are gentle cautions and
words of counsel to teachers as to their
influence upon the young minds under their
care and affirm his strong belief in their ability
to think for themselves.

12. To teach, awed by the clamors of ignorance,
yet governed by the dictates of wisdom

21. To teach, gradually and understandingly, by
the shortest steps, from the more easy and
known, to the more difficult and unknown

Orchard House
45. To teach, treating pupils with uniform
familiarity, and patience, and with the
greatest kindness, tenderness and respect
43. To teach, with animation and interest
53. To teach, by intermingling Questions
with instruction
Margaret Fuller
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1810-1850
Journalist, critic, women’s rights
activist
First editor of The Dial, a
transcendental journal
First female journalist to work on
a major newspaper—The New
York Tribune
Taught at Alcott’s Temple School
Margaret Fuller “The Great Lawsuit: Man vs. Men. Woman vs. Women” (July 1843)

A compelling case for women's equality


“. . . If the negro be a soul, if the woman be a
soul, appareled in flesh, to one master only are
they accountable. There is but one law for all
souls, and, if there is to be an interpreter of it, he
comes not as man, or son of man, but as Son of
God”
In 1846, Fuller became a foreign
correspondent for the Tribune and traveled to
Europe
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In Italy, she became involved with revolutionaries
and decided not to return to America for a while
She fell in love with Marchese Giovanni Angelo
d'Ossoli, a much younger man of the petty
nobility and a fellow revolutionary
She participated in the Revolution of 1848
After the revolt was suppressed by conservative
forces, she, Ossoli and their son decided to return
to America in May of 1850
Tragically, the ship they were traveling on struck a
sandbar and slowly sank just off Fire Island New
York
Fuller, Ossoli, and their son drowned
Margaret Fuller
Louisa May
Alcott (1832–
1888), 1856
In search of independence for
herself and financial security for her
family, Alcott worked as a
seamstress, governess, teacher, and
housemaid until her writing finally
brought her success. Her much-loved,
largely autobiographical novel Little
Women has remained in print
continuously from 1868 until our own
day.

Under the Chestnut Tree


Under a spreading chestnut tree,
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny
arms
Are strong as iron bands.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
"The Village Blacksmith,"
published 1841 in Ballads and
Other Poems.
Midnight Ride of Paul Revere


Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled
oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.


Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North
Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,-By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.


A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord
town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have
read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,--How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard
wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul
Revere;
And so through the night went his cry
of alarm
To every Middlesex village and
farm,--A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at
the door,
And a word that shall echo for
evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the
Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril
and need,
The people will waken and listen to
hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that
steed,
And the midnight message of Paul
Revere.
Walt Whitman (1819–1892), ca.
1860

Whitman’s love affair with
America and the American
people inspired later poets
such as Allen Ginsberg,
and “Whitmanesque” came
to describe any poetry that
celebrates the possibilities
of American life and
unbridled personal
freedom.
WHITMAN 1840
I Hear America Singing

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I
hear; Those of mechanics—each one singing
his, as it should be, blithe and strong; The
carpenter singing his, as he measures his
plank or beam, The mason singing his, as he
makes ready for work, or leaves off
work; The boatman singing what belongs to
him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the
steamboat deck;
5The shoemaker
singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter
singing as he stands; The wood-cutter’s
song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the
morning, or at the noon intermission, or at
sundown; The delicious singing of the
mother—or of the young wife at work—or of
the girl sewing or washing—Each singing
what belongs to her, and to none else; The
day what belongs to the day—At night, the
party of young fellows, robust,
friendly, Singing, with open mouths, their
strong melodious songs.
A Quiet Recluse
HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging,
I may remember him!
Because I could not stop for Death





Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no
haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
Dwell in Possibility



I dwell in Possibility-A fairer House than Prose-More numerous of Windows-Superior--for Doors-Of Chambers as the Cedars-Impregnable of Eye-And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky-Of Visitors--the fairest-For Occupation--This-The spreading wide my narrow
Hands
To gather Paradise--
I’m Nobody!

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us —
don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be
somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the
livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Herman Melville

American novelist, short
story writer, essayist and
poet who is often classified
as part of dark
romanticism. He is best
known for his novel MobyDick and novella Billy Budd,
the latter which was
published posthumously.
Capturing a Sperm Whale, painted by William
Page from a sketch by C. B. Hulsart, 1835
This painting and Melville’s Moby Dick vividly portray the hazards of
whaling. Despite the dangers, it proved to be an important industry from
colonial times to the end of the nineteenth century

Call me Ishmael



Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how
long precisely—having little or no money in my
purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore,
I thought I would sail about a little and see the
watery part of the world.
It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and
regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself
growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a
damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find
myself involuntarily pausing before coffin
warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every
funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos
get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a
strong moral principle to prevent me from
deliberately stepping into the street, and
methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I
account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his
sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing
surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men
in their degree, some time or other, cherish very
nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Song of Hiawatha


XXII. Hiawatha's Departure
By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing In the sunshine.
Bright above him shone the heavens,
Level spread the lake before him;
From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,
Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;
On its margin the great forest
Stood reflected in the water,
Every tree-top had its shadow,
Motionless beneath the water.

From the brow of Hiawatha
Gone was every trace of sorrow,
As the fog from off the water,
As the mist from off the meadow.
With a smile of joy and triumph,
With a look of exultation,
As of one who in a vision
Sees what is to be, but is not,
Stood and waited Hiawatha.
Toward the sun his hands were
lifted,
Both the palms spread out against
it,
And between the parted fingers
Fell the sunshine on his features,
Flecked with light his naked
shoulders,
As it falls and flecks an oak-tree
Through the rifted leaves and
branches
John Greenleaf Whittier
(December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892)

An influential American Quaker poet and ardent
advocate of the abolition of slavery

Telling the Bees

THERE is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.
There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
And down by the brink
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
Edgar Allen Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and
weary,
Over many a quaint and curious
volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping,
suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping,
rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered,
"tapping at my chamber door
Only this, and nothing more."
Deep into that darkness peering

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood
there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever
dared to dream before
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness
gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the
whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back
the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul
within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder
than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my
window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this
mystery explore Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery
explore; 'Tis the wind and nothing more!'
A Transcendentalist Critic:
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
 Their pursuit of the ideal led
to a distorted view of human
nature and possibilities:
* The Blithedale Romance
 One should accept the world
as an imperfect place:
* Scarlet Letter
* House of the Seven
Gables
Separate Spheres Concept
“Cult of Domesticity”
A woman’s “sphere” was in the home (it was a
refuge from the cruel world outside).
Her role was to “civilize” her husband and
family.
 An 1830s MA minister:
The power of woman is her dependence. A woman
who gives up that dependence on man to become a
reformer yields the power God has given her for
her protection, and her character becomes
unnatural!
What It Would Be Like If Ladies Had Their
Own Way!
R2-8