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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson has been hailed as the Father of Transcendentalism and the Fountain Head of American Literature. Not only did his transcendental writings inspire Henry David Thoreau to apply them to everyday life, but transcendentalism affected politics, religion, education, and every other writer of his time.
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Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism: A transcendental philosophy, character, or writing is based upon the idea that reality is discovered by a process of thought that emphasizes an individual's spiritual intuition over empirical evidence or previous experience.
So what does this mean? How does this idea affect politics, religion, education, and literature?
- Even Hawthorne and Melville, who attacked transcendental thought, were affected by it.
So how have these written ideas affected us? Watch the video and see if you have ever come across any of these famous transcendental quotes or have ever heard any of these songs that embody transcendental beliefs.
So what does this mean? How does this idea affect politics, religion, education, and literature?
- Emerson was originally a Unitarian. The Unitarian Church at the time rejected belief in the trinity in favor the a belief in a Unitary God m, they rejected beliefs in Original Sin and predestination, and they believed in the basic goodness and innate free will of the individual. Emerson left his position as a Unitarian minister because he felt that Unitarianism was too restrictive. Still, Emerson took the Unitarian beliefs of the innate goodness of man and the innate free will of the individual, and those ideas were the foundation of transcendentalism.
- Transcendentalism is a philosophy of Individualism and Self-Reliance, traits that had always been treasured in the American frontier. As pioneers continued to move west, individuality, self-reliance, and intuition were extremely desirable traits for isolated farmers, miners, and trappers. The Colonies fought for their independence and the laws of the United States of American were assigned to protect and preserve individual freedoms. Emerson believed that since people where ultimately good and that they would always do the right thing if they followed their intuition.
- Transcendentalism: a belief that the transcendent (or spiritual) reality, rather than the material world, is the ultimate reality.
- This Transcendental reality cannot be known by rational or logic, it can only be known by intuition or mystical insight.
- All people are open to this higher knowledge.
- No writer of the American Classic Period escaped the influence of Transcendentalism
- Even Hawthorne and Melville, who attacked transcendental thought, were affected by it.
So how have these written ideas affected us? Watch the video and see if you have ever come across any of these famous transcendental quotes or have ever heard any of these songs that embody transcendental beliefs.
Maxims:
Maxim: a short, witty statement expressing a general truth or rule of conduct.
"Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense."
"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members."
"Nothing is sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
"My life is for itself and not for a spectacle"
"Insist on yourself, never imitate."
from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Nonconformist: one who chooses to follow one's intuition rather than the expectations of society
-"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist" (208).
-"Your goodness must have some edge to it - else it is none" (208).
-"I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me" (208).
Traveling:
-"It is the want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth" (208-9).
-"The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still and shall make men sensible by expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cites and men like a sovereign and not like an interloper or valet" (209).
-"Traveling is a fool's paradise" (209).
Reliance on Property:
-"And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance' (209).
-"Men have looked away from themselves an at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, be cause they feel them to be assaults on property" (209).
-"It is only as man puts off all foreign support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail" (210).
-"He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of hi and elsewhere, and, so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head" (210).
Discussion Questions:
1. How do these quotes demonstrate Emerson's transcendental ideas?
2. What does it mean to be a nonconformist?
3. How could an individual live out these ideas?
4. What would a society look like if it was founded on transcendental ideals?
5. When a nonconformist rebels against society, that individual will succumb to one of the three following outcomes: the nonconformist is destroyed by society, the nonconformist flees society, or society is changed by the nonconformist. If you lived by Emerson's ideals, what would the result be?
from "The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
How can you be an individual? If society is a machine churning out cookie cutter humans, how does and individual break the mold?
- "The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters - a good finger, a neck a stomach, an elbow, but never a man" (211).
- "In the right state he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere tinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking" (211).
- "And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master?" (211).
Discussion Questions:
1. What is the fable that Emerson is referring to?
2. What does Emerson say about a person's profession?
3. Explain the metaphor Emerson makes between a cut up tree and individuals in society.
4. How should a scholar learn in the right state? How does that differ from the degenerate state?
5. How does Man Thinking differ from a mere thinker?
Maxim: a short, witty statement expressing a general truth or rule of conduct.
"Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense."
"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members."
"Nothing is sacred but the integrity of your own mind."
"My life is for itself and not for a spectacle"
"Insist on yourself, never imitate."
from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Nonconformist: one who chooses to follow one's intuition rather than the expectations of society
-"Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist" (208).
-"Your goodness must have some edge to it - else it is none" (208).
-"I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me" (208).
Traveling:
-"It is the want of self-culture that the superstition of Traveling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth" (208-9).
-"The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still and shall make men sensible by expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cites and men like a sovereign and not like an interloper or valet" (209).
-"Traveling is a fool's paradise" (209).
Reliance on Property:
-"And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance' (209).
-"Men have looked away from themselves an at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned, and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, be cause they feel them to be assaults on property" (209).
-"It is only as man puts off all foreign support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail" (210).
-"He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of hi and elsewhere, and, so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head" (210).
Discussion Questions:
1. How do these quotes demonstrate Emerson's transcendental ideas?
2. What does it mean to be a nonconformist?
3. How could an individual live out these ideas?
4. What would a society look like if it was founded on transcendental ideals?
5. When a nonconformist rebels against society, that individual will succumb to one of the three following outcomes: the nonconformist is destroyed by society, the nonconformist flees society, or society is changed by the nonconformist. If you lived by Emerson's ideals, what would the result be?
from "The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
How can you be an individual? If society is a machine churning out cookie cutter humans, how does and individual break the mold?
- "The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters - a good finger, a neck a stomach, an elbow, but never a man" (211).
- "In the right state he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere tinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking" (211).
- "And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master?" (211).
Discussion Questions:
1. What is the fable that Emerson is referring to?
2. What does Emerson say about a person's profession?
3. Explain the metaphor Emerson makes between a cut up tree and individuals in society.
4. How should a scholar learn in the right state? How does that differ from the degenerate state?
5. How does Man Thinking differ from a mere thinker?
Gallery
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