American Transcendentalism

“ It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, always do what

you are afraid to do.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Am Lit DO NOW: 11/11/13

• Respond in writing:

• Is man good but gets corrupted in cities/societies? Or is man bad and the structure of cities/societies keep us in line?

• ELITE: Do humans need religion to find “god”?

Transcendentalism• A literary movement in the 1830s that

established a clear “American voice”.• Emerson first expressed his philosophy in his

essay “Nature”.• A belief in a higher reality than that achieved

by human reasoning.• Suggests that every individual is capable of

discovering this higher truth through intuition.

• Unlike Puritans, they saw humans and nature as possessing an innate goodness.

“In the faces of men and women, I see God”

-Walt Whitman

• Opposed strict ritualism and

dogma of established religion.

Transcendentalism: The tenets:

• Believed in living close to nature/importance of nature. Nature is the source of truth and inspiration.

• Taught the dignity of manual labor

• Advocated self-trust/ confidence

• Valued individuality/non-conformity/free thought

• Advocated self-reliance/ simplicity

The first transcendentalists

• Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Margaret Fuller

• Henry David Thoreau

• Bronson Alcott

“Self-reliance” -Emerson

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation in suicide…”

“Trust thyself…”

“What I must do is

all that concerns me,

not what people think…”

“…to be great is to be misunderstood”

“Nature”

• Thoreau began “essential” living

• Built a cabin on land owned to Emerson in Concord, Mass. near Walden Pond

• Lived alone there

for two years studying

nature and seeking

truth within himself

“I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it has to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

“Still we live meanly like ants.”“Our life is frittered away by detail.”

“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?”

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a

thousand.”

Individuality

“How deep the ruts of tradition and conformity.”

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

“Civil Disobedience”

• Thoreau’s essay urging passive, non-violent resistance to governmental policies to which an individual is morally opposed.

• Influenced individuals such a Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez

“[If injustice] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to

another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be the friction to stop the machine.”

Basic Premise #2

The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self—all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."

Basic Premise #3

Transcendentalists accepted the concept of nature as a living mystery, full of signs; nature is symbolic.

Basic Premise #4

The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization—this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies:

1. The desire to embrace the whole world—to know and become one with the world.

2. The desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate—an egotistical existence.

Am Lit DO NOW 11-12-13

• Respond: “What does it mean to be self-reliant”? What does it mean to “transcend”?

• Take a copy of the “Self-Reliance” Interactive Reader. Read and complete it for tomorrow. (We are doing an activity that you might not be able to finish on time if you don’t read tonight).

Basic Premise #1

An individual is the spiritual center of the universe, and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of G-d, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual.

Am Lit DO NOW 11-13-13

Take a Green Day Handout. Read the lyrics. What do you think they mean by

“A face in the crowdUnsung, against the mold “

“You are your own sight”

Success Today Means

You can interpret the tenets of Transcendentalism by comparing “Self-Reliance” to “Minority” by completing the Green Day worksheet.

You showed that you read to comprehend by filling out the Interactive Reader version of “Self-Reliance”

HW: Finish Self-Reliance Packet and Green Day Worksheet

Am Lit DO NOW 11/14/13

What do you think Emerson means by: “I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see

all”

Interpret you own meaning. It’s ok if you are not sure.

ELITE THINKERS: what literary device is Emerson using here?

Success Today Means:

You can interpret some of Emerson’s figures of speech

You can determine the central ideas of his texts You demonstrate this success by completing the

graphic organizer for “Self-Reliance” and “Nature”

HW: Read “Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau (a follower of Emerson) pg. 390-396. Answer questions 1-2

Am Lit: DO NOW 11/15/13

If you had to choose between going to jail or following a law you thought was immoral, which would you choose and why?

Are there current laws you think are “unjust”? What are they?

Have homework questions on your desk

Success today means

You can determine the central ideas of Thoreau’s text by “close reading”

You can demonstrate this success by having written answers on the half sheet.

(These questions guide you to parts of his essay focused on the central ideas. Later on, you will have to discover central idea passages on your own.)

HW: Finish Civil Dis. Questions if necessary. Having trouble with Transcendentalism? Read ahead! We start “Walden”pg. 380 on Monday. Read it once on your own. You will be amazed how much more sense it makes when we go through after you read it once.