Transcendentalism
American Romanticism: Transcendentalism
Learning Objectives:
Students will be able to:
• become familiar with important aspects and excerpts from selected American Transcendentalists
• identify elements of Transcendental philosophy within selected works (both past and present)
• place American Transcendentalism in a historical perspective, seeing how each writer influenced those who followed (within the movement and beyond)
• recognize and analyze various literary devices/elements and theme
• respond critically to literature
• form and support opinions on the subjects of individualism, nature, and passive resistance
Readings/Key Terms:
“A Psalm of Life”
❖ Rhyme Scheme
❖ Meter
❖ Stanza
❖ Metaphor
❖ Speaker
“from Self-Reliance”
❖ Aphorism
❖ Essay
“Civil Disobedience” – Henry David Thoreau
❖ Essay
❖ Historical Context
❖ Paradox
❖ Anecdote
“On Civil Disobedience” – Mohandas K. Ghandi
“from Walden”
❖ Nature writing
❖ Aphorism
❖ Imagery
❖ Paradox
❖ Figurative Language: metaphor, simile, personification
Whitman Poetry—
➢ “I Hear America Singing”—“I Sit and Look Out”—
➢ “from Song of Myself (#1,#6,#52)”
➢ When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd
➢ Oh Captain! My Captain!
❖ Form
❖ Structure
❖ Fixed poems
❖ Free Verse
❖ Trochaic tetrameter
❖ Cataloguing
❖ Repetition
❖ Anaphora
❖ Parallelism
❖ Symbolism
American Romanticism
Romanticism—emphasis on glorification of nature, the supernatural, and the rebel—individual vs. society
American offshoot:
❖ impulse toward reform (temperance, women’s rights, abolition of slavery)
❖ a celebration of individualism (Emerson, Thoreau)
❖ reverence for nature (Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau)
❖ a concern with the impact of new technology (locomotive)
❖ an idealization of women
❖ fascination with death and supernatural
“A Psalm of Life”:
Central Transcendental Concepts:
• Nonconformity
• Carpe Diem!
Notes:
• Conveys one person’s attitude toward life on earth—directed toward people who have a different view on life
• Longfellow rejects the notion that life an “empty dream” to be endured or wasted until death.
• People should appreciate their life on earth as precious and real
• People should act to make a spiritual, moral, or intellectual mark on the world
• Celebrate life and work toward personal achievement
• Short stanzas, strong rhymes and pulsing rhyme give sense of urgency and support speaker’s message of living heroically and fully
• “Life is but an empty dream”
• “and the grave is not it’s goal”
• “not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is not our destined end or way;
But to act that each tomorrow,
Find us farther than today.”
• “Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating,
Funeral marches to the grave.”
• “In bivouac of life”—concept of life as protection in larger struggle
• “act—act in the living present”
• How do you think a Puritan writer such as Bradstreet or Edwards might have responded to the ideas presented in “A Psalm of Life”?
o Both Bradstreet’s poetry and Edward’s sermon stressed the importance of worshiping God, the meaningfulness of material wealth, and the need to humble in this life so that one can look forward to the next. Bradstreet and Edwards might find him misguided or too worldly.
Self-Reliance:
Central Transcendental Concepts:
• Intuition
• Individualism
• Nonconformity
Notes:
• “Self-Reliance—defining and applying activity”
• Meaning of Title: —not responsibility or reliability—INDEPENDENCE OF MIND
• Philosophy of individualism—individuals only have themselves to rely on and therefore every person should be a nonconformist, judging what is right according to his or her own nature.
• One thing that keeps people from self-trust is trying to be consistent with past behavior—maintains that people should have the courage to contradict tomorrow everything they say today.
• Summarize first two paragraphs of “Self-Reliance”—main ideas and supporting details
o Each person must ultimately rely on himself or herself, because nothing good comes of envying or imitating someone else, and a person can only profit from his or her own work. One must accept one’s own unique place in the world and have faith that God is working through oneself in a unique way.
• What is implied by Emerson’s use of the word sacred? Why does he believe that one should follow her or her own nature?
o One’s own impulses must be honored as if they came from God; following your nature is crucial in order to be more self-reliant individual
• “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps the perfect sweetness of solitude”
o STICK FIGURE ILLUSTRATION OF STATEMENT
• What does Emerson say is one consequence of being a nonconformist?
o World “whips you with its displeasure”
• “To be great is to be misunderstood”—briefly research the accomplishments of the mentioned people—allusion
• Main ideas:
o Integrity of mind is everyone’s first duty
o Anyone who wants to make something of themselves must refuse to conform, even in the face of opposition
• Aphorisms of Emerson—idealistic and philosophical, urging the reader toward self-awareness. In contrast, Franklin’s aphorisms are guides to Practical living, urging shrewd use of one’s resources.
“from Walden”:
Central Transcendental Concepts:
• Nature
• Nonconformity
• Simplicity
• Solitude
Notes:
• Plato’s World of Forms
Poetry of Whitman:
Central Transcendental Concepts:
• Nature
• Divinity Within
• Individualism
•
Notes:
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