American Transcendentalism
"WE WILL WALK ON OUR OWN FEET; WE
WILL WORK WITH OUR OWN HANDS; WE
WILL SPEAK OUR OWN MINDS...A NATION
OF MEN WILL FOR THE FIRST TIME EXIST,
BECAUSE EACH BELIEVES HIMSELF
INSPIRED BY THE DIVINE SOUL WHICH
ALSO INSPIRES ALL MEN.”
-RALPH WALDO EMERSON
“THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR”
1837
Hudson River School
Painting as a vehicle
through which the
universal mind could
reach the mind of
mankind
Art as an agent of
moral and spiritual
transformation
Asher B. Durand,
Kindred Spirits
If nature were
untouched by the hand
of man--as was much of
the primeval American
landscape in the early
19th century--then man
could become more
easily acquainted with
the hand of God.
Thomas Cole,
Romantic Landscape
with Ruined Tower
The Transparent Eye-ball
"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 EYE-BALL. I AM NOTHING. I
SEE ALL. THE CURRENTS OF THE
UNIVERSAL BEING CIRCULATE THROUGH
ME; I AM PART OR PARCEL OF GOD”
EMERSON, NATURE
Towards a Definition of Transcendentalism:
A Few Comments
 "The spirit of the time is in every form a protest against
usage and a search for principles." - Emerson in the
opening number of The Dial
 "I was given to understand that whatever was
unintelligible would be certainly Transcendental." Charles Dickens in American Notes
 "I should have told them at once that I was a
transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way
of telling them that they would not understand my
explanations." - Thoreau, Journal, V:4
Additional Comments
 “Transcendentalism is the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing
truth intuitively, or of attaining a scientific knowledge of an order of
existence transcending the reach of the senses, and of which we can have
no sensible experience." - J. A. Saxton, Dial II: 90
 "Literally a passing beyond all media in the approach to the Deity,
Transcendentalism contained an effort to establish, mainly by the
discipline of the intuitive faculty, direct intercourse between the soul and
God." - Charles J. Woodbury in Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson
 "The problem of transcendental philosophy is no less than this, to revise
the experience of mankind and try its teachings by the nature of mankind,
to test ethics by conscience, science by reason; to try the creeds of the
churches, the constitution of the states, by the constitution of the universe."
- Theodore Parker in Works VI: 37
A Definition, Somewhat.
 the capacity of knowing intuitively, or of attaining
knowledge transcending (going beyond) the reach of
the senses
 Idealism
 “seeing into the life of things” -Wordsworth
 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.
Basic Premises
 Glorification of nature
 everything in the world is a microcosm of existence
 "Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact."
 Idealization of each individual
 the spark of divinity lies within man
 the individual soul is identical to the world soul, or Over-Soul
 "Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the
universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related."
 Freedom of thought and expression
 Reliance on intuition
 Independence from the restrictions of society
 Self-reliance
 Humanitarian reform
Albert Bierstadt,
Storm in the Rocky
Mountains (Mount Rosa)
Objections and Commendations
 Transcendentalism, like other romantic movements,
proposes that the essential nature of human beings is
good and that, left in a state of nature, human beings
would seek the good. Society is to blame for the
corruption that mankind endures. Hawthorne's
juxtaposition of the red rose, the flower of nature, and
the rusty, blackened prison, the "black flower" of society,
exemplifies this perspective. This view opposes the
neoclassical vision that society alone is responsible for
keeping human beings from giving in to their own
brutish natures. Transcendentalism also takes the
Romantic view of man's steady degeneration from
childhood to adulthood as he is corrupted by
culture: "A man is a god in ruins."