American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.
-
Upload
josephine-phillips -
Category
Documents
-
view
243 -
download
0
Transcript of American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.
![Page 1: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
American Literature: 1840-1860
TRANSCENDENTALISM
![Page 2: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
American History
Tension leading to Civil WarWestward expansion—railroads, telegraph
Mexican War (1848)Industrialization
![Page 3: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
American Mind-Set
Dissatisfaction with present time, optimism about future
Technology and science will bring better times
![Page 4: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
American Mindset
Loss of American values—cheap labor, mill towns, child labor
American individualism
![Page 5: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Transcendentalism was in response to the American mindset at the time
First major American philosophical movement
Publication of Emerson’s Nature is considered the watershed (defining) moment
![Page 6: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Transcendentalism
Belief that humans can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses and of logic to a plane of “higher truths.”
![Page 7: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Valued spirituality (direct access to a benevolent God, not organized religion or ritual)
![Page 8: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Basic Principles of Transcendentalism
1) The fundamental truths of being and the universe lie beyond the senses and can only be understood through intuition.
![Page 9: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
2) The focus is on the human spirit and the spiritual relationship between humanity and nature.
![Page 10: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
3) Nature is a manifestation of the human spirit. The meaning of existence can be found through exploring nature.
![Page 11: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
4) All forms of being – God, nature, man – are spiritually united under a shared universal soul – the Over-Soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson coined this term.
![Page 12: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
To Review…Transcendentalists…
A deep faith in human potentialBelieved that all forms of being are
spiritually united through a shared universal soul
Popular themes in their writing include love and nature
Known for their essays expressing their ideas and beliefs
![Page 13: American Literature: 1840-1860 TRANSCENDENTALISM.](https://reader035.fdocuments.in/reader035/viewer/2022062217/56649e355503460f94b23b5d/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Similar to Romanticism
Nature is the key to self-awarenessIf you open yourself up to nature, you man
receive its gifts: a deeper, more mystical experience of life
Nature offers a kind of “grace” – “salvation” from mundane evils of everyday life.
Both T & R came to prominence around the same time. (Remember, TSL was published in 1850).