Transcendentalism

Transcend: to go beyond

What do you think transcendentalism is?

What is transcendentalism?

American philosophy that began in the 1830’s

Mostly consisted of New Englanders

Struggled with how to define spirituality and religion

Developed as a protest to the general state of culture and society (disillusionment)

Broadened into a literary and artistic movement as well

Characteristics of transcendentalism

Transcendentalists believed that…

God gave humankind the gift of intuition, insight, and imagination

There is inherent goodness in both man and nature

Society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupt the purity of the individual

Man is at his best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.

Characteristics cont.Transcendentalists believed that…

The soul of each individual is identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains

Ultimate truth is within ourselves and within nature

Our judgment can be clouded by outside forces (materialism)

Social reform movements such as women’s rights and anti-slavery campaigns were worthy causes

Was a reaction to… Rationalism

Manifest Destiny

Calvinism (i.e. Puritanism)

Has its roots in… German idealism and philosophy,

specifically Immanuel Kant

Romanticism, a European movement at the time that was liberal and also included appreciation of nature

Famous Transcendentalists

Ralph Waldo Emerson – wrote essays “Nature” and “Self-Reliance”

Henry David Thoreau – wrote book Walden (we will read an excerpt) and essay “Civil Disobedience”

Louisa May Alcott – American author who wrote Little Women

Nathaniel Hawthorne – wrote The Scarlet Letter

Walt Whitman – American poet

Emily Dickinson – American poet

John Muir – American who founded the Sierra Club and devoted his life to the preservation of forests

Leo Tolstoy- Russian author who wrote Anna Karenina and War & Peace

Jack London- American author who wrote The Call of the Wild and White Fang

Modern day Although transcendentalism was a powerful

movement in the 1830’s and 1840’s, there are still modern transcendentalists who exist.

What sorts of characteristics might a modern transcendentalist have?

-Protective of/interested in nature

-Disdains materialism

-Rebel/rogue

-Doesn’t like societal rules or being hemmed in when it comes to education or religion

-Chris McCandless, the main character in Into the Wild, is a modern transcendentalist.