Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803-1882)

Lived primarily in Massachusetts, with stints in SC, FL, and England

AKA: Waldo, the Concord Sage, The Prophet of the American Religion (Harold Bloom)

"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.“

—from the 1837 Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Address

Transcendentalism

The term Transcendentalism was derived from the German philosopher Kant, who called "all knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects.“

Arose within the context of Unitarianism, the dominant religion in Boston in the early 1800s. Their beliefs were based on: stability, harmony, rational

thought, progressive morality, classical learning, and other hallmarks of Enlightenment Christianity

Transcendentalism

Though often thought of as the first notable American intellectual movement, Transcendentalism drew on a hodgepodge of international thought: German philosophy

(mysticism) English & German

Romanticism (imagistic language and themes)

Indian religious texts (intellectual and spiritual reciprocity)

Transcendentalism

Emerson’s definition of a Transcendentalist (1841):

[The Transcendentalist] "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."

Transcendentalism

A complex collection of beliefs: the spark of divinity lies

within man everything in the world is a

microcosm of existence the individual soul is identical

to the world soul, or Over-Soul, as Emerson called it.

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.

Transcendentalism

This belief in the Inner Light led to an emphasis on the authority of the Self:▪ Walt Whitman's “I”▪ Emersonian doctrine of Self-

Reliance▪ Thoreau's civil disobedience▪ Utopian communities at Brook

Farm and Fruitlands.

--source, PBS: I Hear America Singing

Nature: Introduction

anthropocentric

1 : considering human beings as the most significant entity of the universe

2 : interpreting or regarding the world in terms of human values and experiences

Homework: Be Emersonian Leave your chamber and society, i.e.

Go outside, alone, for at least an hour with NO electronics ▪ No phone, headphones, laptop, camera, etc.

If you’re so inclined, take something old-fashioned with which to write notes (you know, like paper and a pen)

Immerse yourself in the world, alive to all your senses

Return and write a one-page treatise titled “Nature”

At the top, write a one-sentence maxim summarizing your philosophy

Email it to me by no later than Monday, 9/2, at noon.