Transcendentalism

A literary movement
that started in the
early 1800’s.

Ask yourself FOUR
questions to
determine if you are a
transcendentalist.
The Four questions of
Transcendentalism

Is darkness just the absence of light, or is it a
separate thing by itself?

Which is more important and WHY? Fostering
goodness, or fighting sin?

Is evil just the absence of good, or is it a
separate force?

Do you believe in the devil?
What do the questions tell us?

Transcendentalists refuted the concept of evil. Darkness
is therefore just the absence of light.

Transcendentalists did not believe in evil people. An
“evil” person is just a person whose goodness has not
been fostered. The person is good. The world has
made him/her “evil.”

“Evil” itself is just the absence of good. There are NO
forces of evil out there working against goodness.
Therefore, a transcendentalist would never believe in a
“devil.” This means that “evil” is our fault for not
fostering and believing in everyone’s goodness.
What do the questions tell us?

Transcendentalists believe that ALL people
are inherently good. If you just left
people alone, they’d be fine. Therefore,
there is NO NEED to fight sin. Just foster
goodness.
Transcendentalist Poet Walt Whitman

FOUR PRINCIPLES
Communion with nature
 Intense individualism
 Self Reliance
 Intuition

Communion with Nature

Transcendentalists believed that you could get answers to all the big
questions about the meaning of life, what happens after death,
everything.

You can do this by observing nature and translating what you see
into spiritual truth using your INTUITION.

Everything has great meaning in nature, even a single ant.

"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
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
Indiviudalism
You can only find truth if you are truly an
individual.
 You must learn to trust yourself and your
feelings. Use your INTUITION.
 Forget about society and its rules.


In order to forget about society, you must
be self reliant.
Self Reliance

If you count on a job for money for food and a place to
live, you can’t be self reliant.

Think about all of the things we rely on other people for.
Cars, clothes, food, gas…

If you care what other people think… If you worry about
breaking the law… you can’t be self reliant.

Transcendentalists tended to live in the woods and fend
for themselves.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

If people are inherently
good, what do you need
laws for?

Transcendentalists believed
that there should be NO
LAWS.

What causes people to
break laws? Are we just
sinners and law breakers?
Or do the laws themselves
turn people bad?
"Every natural fact is a symbol of some
spiritual fact."
•Transcendentalists
were Optimists and
Idealists
•They believed in
“seeing” not
“looking.”
ANTI-TRANSCENDENTALISTS
•Thought transcendentalists
were unrealistic and
dangerous.
•Felt life and its purposes
were inherently uncertain.
•Saw nature as
INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
•Felt that humans were
ESSENTIALLY DEPRAVED,
and that SIN was an ACTIVE
FORCE, not just the absence
of good.
ANTI-TRANSCENDENTALISTS
•You had to fight sin.
•FEARED that individualism
would bring out the WORST
in human nature.
•Called transcendentalists
SELFISH.
•Without society and its laws
we would be just like
animals.
Use Writing to THINK

Use writing to THINK about the following
questions. Ask questions of yourself in the
writing.
1)
Are laws more what stop people from
committing terrible acts, or what causes them
to act out in the first place?
2)
Can a person with a job, house, family, etc.
really be an individual?
Intuition Game

READ: “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo
Emerson.

Make a list of 5 fake quotes that sound
like Emerson, but aren’t.

Turn them in.
The Age of Modernism
Everybody Charleston!
Victorian Culture
A bridge between Transcendentalism and modernism.
1830-1900
 Based on values of thrift, diligence,
persistence, and immense optimism
about the progress industrialism
would bring – not about mankind’s
inherent goodness.
 Ideal vision of stable, peaceful society free
from sin and discord

Core Beliefs of Victorian Culture
The universe was predictable, presided
over by a benevolent God, and governed
by immutable natural laws.
 Humankind was capable of arriving at a
fixed set of truths about all aspects of life.
 Life could be divided into that which was
“human” and that which was “animal”

What Made Victorians Human or
Civilized
Education
 Refinement
 Manners
 Arts
 Religion
 Domesticated emotions such as loyalty
and family love

What Made Victorians Animal or
Savage

Any instinct or passion that threatened self control

S-E-X—”a hidden geyser of animality existing within
everyone and capable of erupting with little or no
warning at the slightest stimulus”
–
Daniel Singal.
– Sex was hidden in Victorian novels. There are a lot of
trains entering tunnels, rolling landscapes reminiscent
of female bodies, people running down stairs and
other images that Freud later determined to be
sexually suggestive.
Other Victorian Beliefs

In order to create a predictability and order and comfort
zone in their lives, Victorians sought also to divide along
lines of race, class, and gender, and there was to be
no diversion from these divisions.

Charles Dickens is a classically Victorian Writer. Happy
endings. Sentimental portraits acceptable for people of
character to read. Shocking at times, but not disgusting.


Novels were for “grown up people.”
“Victorian” writers are often overlooked because writing
from this period was vastly different in the early period
than the late. Dickens  Melville, Dracula.
The Advent of Modernism
1900-1945—Influence of Industrialization
and growth of cities
 Changed beliefs in all aspects of cultural
life—literature, music, painting,
architecture, philosophy, scientific study,
etc.
 A clear reaction to and rebellion against
the values of Victorian culture

Key Values of Modernism
From art to social policy, Modernists have
attempted to bring together what the previous
culture tried to keep separate
 To integrate the human and the animal, the
civilized and the savage, and to heal the sharp
divisions Victorians had established in class
race and gender—jazz music
 Importance of opening the self to new levels of
experience

James McFarlane’s Stages of
Modernist Development
Rebellion—the fragmentation and
disintegration of Victorian absolutes
 Restructuring—putting the fragments
together in a new way. Modernists “make
it new.”
 Dissolving, blending, merging—what
had been separate pieces are now a new
and different whole

Modernist Literature
Highly influenced by key events of 19001945: industrialization and growth of
cities, immigration and the Great
Migration, World War I
 Modernist in form and content: stories
become non-linear, non-traditional
 More confusing and demanding of the
reader

Modernist Literature
Disillusionment is a key and almost
constant theme
 Presence of death continually lingering
 “The Truth” can be discovered, but with
great difficulty, and it may not be the truth
that is sought.
 ALIENATION

– Sense of estrangement from the self and
the external world.
The Victorian Ideal--Women

Strictly defined
gender role, little
to no sexuality
expressed, image
controlled largely
by men
The Victorian Ideal--Women

Strictly defined
gender role, little to
no sexuality
expressed, image
controlled largely by
men
The Modernist Ideal—The Flapper

Merging of gender
roles in both
appearance and
behavior.
The Modernist Ideal—The Flapper

Merging of gender
roles in both
appearance and
behavior.
Victorian Ideal--Art

Predictable,
representative,
understandable
Modernist Ideal--Art

Picasso’s abstraction
and Cubism

Dependence on
perspective
More Picasso
This is why he’s a genuis
Modernist Music

So, you think Fergie or R. Kelly invented
sexually suggestive lyrics? Observe Cole
Porter, the king of popular music during
the Roaring 20s:

You could have a great career,
And you should;
Yes you should.
Only one thing stops you dear:
You're too good;
Way too good!
If you want a future, darlin',
Why don't you get a past?
'Cause that fateful moment's comin' at last...
We're all alone, no chaperone
Can get our number
The world's in slumber--let's misbehave!!!
There's something wild about you child
That's so contagious
Let's be outrageous--let's misbehave!!!
When Adam won Eve's hand
He wouldn't stand for teasin'.
He didn't care about those apples out of season.
They say that Spring means just one little thing to little lovebirds
We're not above birds--let's misbehave!!!
It's getting late and while I wait
My poor heart aches on
Why keep the breaks on? Let's misbehave!!!
I feel quite sure affaire d'amour
Would be attractive
While we're still active, let's misbehave!
You know my heart is true
And you say you for me care...
Somebody's sure to tell,
But what the heck do we care?
They say that bears have love affairs
And even camels
We're men and mammals--let's misbehave!!!
Times have changed,
And we've often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today,
Any shock they should try to stem,
'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.
If saying your prayers you like,
If green pears you like
If old chairs you like,
If back stairs you like,
If love affairs you like
With young bears you like,
Why nobody will oppose!
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, Heaven knows,
Anything Goes.
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes...
Anything goes!
Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.
If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like
Or me undressed you like,
Why, nobody will oppose!
When every night,
The set that's smart
Is intruding on nudist parties in studios,
Anything Goes.
Anything Goes!
Bibliography
Singall, Joseph. “Toward a Definition of
American Modernism.” American Quarterly