Assignment- Paper No: 108
This Blog is an Assignment of Paper no.108 American Literature. In this assignment, I am dealing with the topic of Transcendentalism: A Movement.
Information:
Name: Asha Rathod
Paper 108: American Literature
Subject Code: 22401
Topic Name: Transcendentalism: A Movement
Batch: M.A. Sem-2 (2023-25)
Roll No: 3
Enrollment No: 5108230038
Email Address: asharathod1451@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S. B. Gardi, Department of English, MKBU
.jpg)
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement. It looks like various aspects. Also going beyond the idea of Romanticism.
Transcendentalism To go above and beyond the limitation of the senses and everyday experiences.
* we can go beyond by depending on our intuition rather than on reason and logic.
Key words: Simplicity but it's not simple.
which does not have an answer.
The keyword for transcendentalism is simplicity.
Transcendentalism - A movement
Transcendentalism is a 19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England
who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thoughts.
Based on the belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man.
And the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths.
what is Transcendentalism
It’s all about spirituality. Transcendentalism is a philosophy that began in the mid-19th century and whose founding members included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. It centers around the belief that spirituality cannot be achieved through reason and rationalism, but instead through self-reflection and intuition. In other words, transcendentalists believe spirituality isn’t something you can explain; it’s something you feel. A transcendentalist would argue that going for a walk in a beautiful place would be a much more spiritual experience than reading a religious text.
*Major Transcendentalist Values*
The transcendentalist movement encompassed many beliefs, but these all fit into their three main values of individualism, idealism, and the divinity of nature.
Individualism
Perhaps the most important transcendentalist value was the importance of the individual. They saw the individual as pure, and they believed that society and its institutions corrupted this purity. Transcendentalists highly valued the concept of thinking for oneself and believed people were best when they were independent and could think for themselves. Only then could individuals come together and form ideal communities.
Idealism
The focus on idealism comes from Romanticism, a slightly earlier movement. Instead of valuing logic and learned knowledge as many educated people at the time did, transcendentalists placed great importance on imagination, intuition and creativity. They saw the values of the Age of Reason as controlling and confining, and they wanted to bring back a more “ideal” and enjoyable way of living.
Divinity of Nature
Transcendentalists didn’t believe in organized religion, but they were very spiritual. Instead of believing in the divinity of religious figures, they saw nature as sacred and divine. They believed humans needed to have a close relationship with nature, the same way religious leaders preach about the importance of having a close relationship with God. Transcendentalists saw nature as perfect as it was; humans shouldn’t try to change or improve it.
Key Figures in the Transcendentalist Movement
At its height, many people supported the beliefs of transcendentalism, and numerous well-known names from the 19th century have been associated with the movement. Below are five key transcendentalists.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson is a key figure in transcendentalism. He brought together many of the original transcendentalists, and his writings form the foundation of many of the movement’s beliefs. The day before he published his essay “Nature” he invited a group of his friends to join the “Transcendental Club” a meeting of like-minded individuals to discuss their beliefs. He continued to host club meetings, write essays, and give speeches to promote transcendentalism. Some of his most important transcendentalist essays include “The Over-Soul,” “Self-Reliance,” “The American Scholar” and “Divinity School Address.”
Transcendentalism is a very formal word that describes a very simple idea. People, men and women equally, have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that "transcends" or goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel.
This knowledge comes through intuition and imagination not through logic or the senses. People can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right. A Transcendentalist is a person who accepts these ideas not as religious beliefs but as a way of understanding life relationships.
The individuals most closely associated with this new way of thinking were connected loosely through a group known as The Transcendental Club, which met in the Boston home of George Ripley. Their chief publication was a periodical called "The Dial," edited by Margaret Fuller, a political radical and feminist whose book "Women of the Nineteenth Century" was among the most famous of its time. The club had many extraordinary thinkers but accorded the leadership position to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Emerson's Transcendentalism:
Transcendentalism, Emerson had firsthand knowledge (p. 389), but (p. 383 note 2) of the Transcendentalists, Emerson was "only the most distinguished disciple, although very unfaithful a disciple now and then." Emerson was "only an idealist at odd times." That Emerson was, to some extent, a disciple of Channing can be supported, but who are the other Transcendentalists whom Emerson followed like his masters? Were they Ripley, Brownson, Emerson's contemporaries, or Parker his own disciple? Professor Girard does not say. Nor does he state what day and what moment of his life Emerson ceased to be an idealist.
To show Emerson's aloofness from the Transcendentalist brotherhood, Professor Girard quotes from the famous lecture on the Transcendentalist where Emerson, taking for a while the point of view of the objectors, writes of the Transcendentalists that: "They are not good citizens..." A reference to the lecture will show that the contention here is not Emerson's but that of the public, and Emerson answers it in what follows.
The secret of Professor Girard's animosity to Emerson is not far to seek. Those who have laid stress on the German origin of the movement are the same, according to him, who take Emerson for the leader of Transcendentalism. For Professor Girard, one cannot be a Transcendentalist in the sense of Emerson without being suspected of German sympathies. Emerson becomes, from that fact, a stumbling block to the theory of French influence. Hence the ostracism against him.
Has not Emerson also been the victim of Professor Girard's strained classifications and divisions? To emphasize, as his right was, French influence, Professor Girard insists on the religious aspect of Transcendentalism, but cannot deny that it had also a philosophical aspect. Neither on this point does it seem that Professor Girard has made his views very clear. Have there really been two successive and distinct phases of New England Transcendentalism, one religious up to 1835, represented by Channing, the other one philosophical after that date?
Professor Girard himself is not very sure of the fact, but he makes the statement "for the sake of exposition," a statement which he finally takes for granted. But how can Ripley, Brownson, and Parker who, chronologically, belong to the second period, be brought to testify in the first? And how can Ripley and Brownson, Emerson's contemporaries, represent "the soul" of Transcendentalism under its religious aspect against the author of the Divinity School address? Had not Emerson, himself a well-known preacher and lecturer, his own Transcendental philosophy of religion, not to be dismissed without a thorough inquiry and discussion?
If New England Transcendentalism had, as stated by Professor Girard, a second and philosophical period, after 1835, who represented it besides Emerson?
Is Emerson, to be excluded from Transcendentalism, offered a fair treatment by Professor Girard when we read as unconvincing an argument as the following on "the little influence Emerson had on the men of his time" (p. 395 note 4)? Is it fair to recall that only 500 copies were sold of Nature, Emerson's first and anonymous book, while his different addresses and lectures since 1834 stirred the New England public, as recorded in particular by Lowell and Holmes after hearing Emerson's lecture on the American Scholar, that "intellectual Declaration of Independence" according to Holmes? (See Emerson's Works, Centenary Edition I p. 415).
Let us accept, for the sake of argument, Professor Girard's views of Transcendentalism under a double aspect, the first "essentially" religious and the second philosophical, and let us see how Emerson stands, in both cases, as a true Transcendentalist.
Transcendentalism, An American Philosophy
TRANSCENDENTALISM is a very formal word that describes a very simple idea. People, men and women equally, have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that "transcends" or goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel.
This knowledge comes through intuition and imagination not through logic or the senses. People can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right. A TRANSCENDENTALIST is a person who accepts these ideas not as religious beliefs but as a way of understanding life relationships.
The individuals most closely associated with this new way of thinking were connected loosely through a group known as THE TRANSCENDENTAL CLUB, which met in the Boston home of GEORGE RIPLEY. Their chief publication was a periodical called The Dial, edited by Margaret Fuller, a political radical and feminist whose book Women in the Nineteenth Century was among the most famous of its time. The club had many extraordinary thinkers, but accorded the leadership position to RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Margaret Fuller
Emerson was a Harvard-educated essayist and lecturer and is recognized as our first truly "American" thinker. In his most famous essay, "THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR," he urged Americans to stop looking to Europe for inspiration and imitation and be themselves. He believed that people were naturally good and that everyone's potential was limitless. He inspired his colleagues to look into themselves, into nature, into art, and through work for answers to life's most perplexing questions. His intellectual contributions to the philosophy of transcendentalism inspired a uniquely American idealism and spirit of reform.
Henry David Thoreau
The second-most important transcendentalist, Thoreau was a friend of Emerson’s who is best known for his book Walden. Walden is focused on the benefits of individualism, simple living and close contact with and observation of nature. Thoreau also frequently opposed the government and its actions, most notably in his essay “Civil Disobedience.”
Margaret Fuller
Margaret Fuller was perhaps the leading female transcendentalist. A well-known journalist and ardent supporter of women’s rights, she helped cofound The Dial, the key transcendentalist journal, with Emerson, which helped cement her place in the movement and spread the ideas of transcendentalism to a wider audience. An essay she wrote for the journal was later published as the book Woman in the Nineteenth Century, one of the earliest feminist works in the United States. She believed in the importance of the individual, but often felt that other transcendentalists, namely Emerson, focused too much on individualism at the expense of social reform.
Amos Bronson Alcott
A friend of Emerson’s, Alcott (father of Little Women’s Louisa May Alcott), was an educator known for his innovative ways of teaching and correcting students. He wrote numerous pieces on transcendentalism, but the quality of his writing was such that most were unpublishable. A noted abolitionist, he refused to pay his poll tax to protest President Tyler’s annexation of Texas as a slave territory. This incident inspired Thoreau to do a similar protest, which led to him writing the essay “Civil Disobedience.”
Conclusion
Transcendentalism is all about spirituality. It can not be achieved through reason and rationalism but instead through reason and rationalism but instead through self-reflection and Intuition, in other words, transcendentalists believe spirituality is not something explained. It is something you feel.
No comments:
Post a Comment