Let’s start with a definition:
A literary and philosophical movement that extends the good
and positive feelings of the Romantics to a higher level of
personal and spiritual understanding. In other words, these
thinkers of the early and mid-1800’s take Romanticism a step
further.
Transcendentalism
goes beyond (or
transcends) a need
for scientific proof or
religious tradition to
achieve spiritual and
personal satisfaction.
They instead insist
that one trusts
his/her own
individual thoughts
and intuitions, that
one, “follows the
beat of his own
drummer.”
Most were from New England.
Most were well-educated, many from Harvard.
Most belonged to the Unitarian Faith, a less strict
religious practice than the Calvinists of the Puritan
era.
Most were abolitionists and some even
advocated women’s rights, including suffrage.
Most distrusted many of the modern advances of
the on-coming Industrial Age.
Most believed society could be improved or even
perfected by trusting in one’s inner perceptions and
by living a simpler life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882
Emerson is seen as the leader of the
Transcendental Movement.
His views are set out in his essay, “Nature,”
published in 1836.
On July 15, 1838, Emerson delivered an address at
the Harvard Divinity School in nearby Cambridge where he
explained the movement’s principle ideas:
“But when the mind opens, and reveals the laws which traverse
the universe…then shrinks the great world at once into a mere
illustration and fable of this mind. What am I? and What is? asks
the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be
quenched.”
Emerson’s basic philosophical
faith is that the ultimate source of
truth is within ourselves. Selfreliance was more than merely an
idea for Emerson. After he
delivered his speech at Cambridge,
he knew Harvard would no longer
welcome him, so he resigned.
Now, he faced a real career
challenge. Emerson took his ideas to the public in
lectures and speeches, assembled a number of devoted
writers around him, and published a numerous essays and
poems that became America’s single, original
philosophical movement—Transcendentalism.
Margaret
1810-1850
Fuller
Known as America’s first Feminist,
Margaret Fuller was chosen by
Emerson to edit the movement’s
official magazine, “The Dial.”
A poet and essayist, Fuller began
editing for the New York Tribune, but
left to become the most important critic
of the Transcendental Movement.
In 1843, The Dial published her essay The Great Lawsuit. Man
versus Men, Woman versus Women in which she called for
women's equality.
“The Dial” was published quarterly, and included poems, essays,
and speeches by the most influential writers of the time. Though
edited by Fuller, it was financed by the friend to all
Transcendental thinkers, Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was published
from 1840 to 1844.
Henry David
Thoreau
1817-1864
Thoreau was Harvard educated and gifted with
literary talent, but he never held a steady job,
and he never amassed great fortune. In fact,
except for a few poems published in “The Dial,”
he never achieved any fame beyond the small
township of Concord…
…until he traveled twelve
miles out of town, built a
one-room cabin on Walden
Pond, and lived there alone
for one year.
Thoreau took the principles
of Transcendentalism and
tested them. He examine his
own life in response to the
natural world around him and
found what he called, “the
essential facts of life.”
With the essays “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau
helped establish a national concern for the nation’s natural
resources and helped to define how individual citizens are to
relate to their government.
Several writers of this
period presented an
examination of the
darker elements of
mankind. These
writers would open
the door to the more
Gothic investigations
of individual thought.
These writings show
that humans are
capable of looking
individually into that
dark abyss and to find
a deeper sense of
themselves.
Herman Melville
1819-1893
Melville’s fictional
novel, Moby Dick,
tells the story of
one whaler’s
struggle against an
evil of the deep.
EmilyDickinson
1830-1856
Never seeking fame for her poetry, Emily
Dickinson scribbled verses from within
her isolated bedroom overlooking the
neighborhood cemetery of Amherst,
Massachusetts.
Dickinson’s seemingly simple verses open the mind to its darkest
most regions. Her poems, wrought in the most tender poetic forms
of Romanticism , cross over (or transcend) to the darkest regions of
the soul.
Though her poetry was not seriously accepted until long after the
close of the Transcendental Period, we now see the movement’s
influence upon her poetic creations.
Edgar Allen Poe
1809-1849
No one looked deeper into the Gothic
elements of life than Poe.