Transcendentalism.ppt

1、Transcendentalism,New England Transcendentalism,A period of the great flowering of American literature, from the 1830s roughly until the end of the American Civil War came of age as an expression of a national spirit. One of the most important influences in the period was that of the Transcendentali

2、sts, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. contributed to the founding of a new national culture based on native elements.,In 1836, Nature was published, which made a tremendous impact on the intellectual life of America. It pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of Ne

3、w England Transcendentalism, the summit of American literature.,The Transcendental Club,In 1836, an informal group met in Concord, Massachusetts, to discuss theology, philosophy, and literature. Good-intentioned neighbors began calling the group members Transcendentalists since they always engaged i

4、n lofty discourses. They accepted the name.,The club continued informally. It involved clergymen such as Theodore Parker, George Ripley, and James Freeman Clarke, learned people such as Elizabeth Peabody, Sophia Thoreau, Henry David Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Emerson was ultimatel

5、y the most representative Transcendentalist, but William Ellery Channing was the one who had planted the seeds before Emerson.,The Transcendental Club sponsored two major activities: First, between 1840-1844, they published sixteen issues of The Dial, a quarterly. Margaret Fuller was the first edito

6、r. Then Emerson took over, with the assistance of Thoreau. Second, they established in 1841 Brook Farm, a Utopian community in which individuals were supposed to be better enabled towards self-realization. The experiment ended in failure in 1847.,Transcendentalism as a philosophy,As an intensified e

7、xpression of Romanticism, Transcendentalism shares the romantic characteristics. The importance of intuition: Transcendentalism, as a way of knowing, believes that individuals can intuitively receive higher truths otherwise unavailable through common methods of knowing, thus transcending the limits

8、of rationalism. More specially, the visible world, if intuited with imagination, offers endless clues about the invisible world whose truths stand eternally behind the factual world perceived by the senses.,the exaltation of the individual over society the new and thrilling delight in nature, fascin

9、ation with the Gothic and the “Oriental,” and the desire to build a national literature and culture In addition, it was a type of Romanticism peculiar to New England, assumed a specific moral and philosophical tone. The moral implications came from the environment where Puritan idealism persisted, t

10、he philosophical tone was largely defined by Emerson.,As formulated by Emerson, this became a call for action encouraging the young not to be enslaved by customs but to follow the God within, and to live every moment with a strenuousness such as found in the Puritan fathers.,The major features of Ne

11、w England Transcendentalism,First, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. It represented a new way of looking at the world. Secondly, the Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual. Thirdly, the transcendental

12、ists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.,Transcendentalism in American literature was the product of a combination of foreign influences and the American Puritan tradition.,Foreign influences:German Idealism: The idealistic concepts of Schelling and Fichte as well

13、as of Kants Critique of Pure Reason found their way to America. Romanticism in Europe had been largely influenced by a group of German philosophers, the German idealists. These included Schelling, Fichte and, most importantly, Kant. Kant was one of the most important philosophers in the history of W

14、estern philosophy. He united rationalism and empiricism into a coherent system. He also united the mind with the material world in his philosophy, so that it is possible for the mind to apprehend the spiritual plain.,English writers: Emerson did not read German, so he relied on the British poet Samu

15、el Taylor Coleridges interpretations of German idealism in his Biographia Literaria, The Friend and Aids to Reflection. The transcendentalists were also influenced by other English writers such as Thomas Carlyles Sartor Resartus, which also talked of German idealism.,French eclecticism (折衷主义) also p

16、roved to be an effective means for the transmission of Kantian and Platonic doctrines to America.Emerson was influenced by the French essayist, Montaigne who lived in the seventeenth century. He developed the conversational style of his essays from this writer. Oriental mysticism: Hindu works: Upani

17、shads and Bhagavad-gita (奥义书和博伽梵歌) The doctrine and the philosophy of Chinese Confucius and Mencius.,Both Emerson and Thoreau were very much influenced by Indian thinking on Hinduism, especially the book the Bhagavad-Gita, a Hindu religious text from about 500 B.C. In Walden, Thoreau talks about Hin

18、du stories Thoreau had also read a lot of Confucianism. He talks of Khong-tseu. Emerson was also influenced by the eastern writers. He writes in Nature:,We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, t

19、o which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the obje

20、ct, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.,American PuritanismThe Edwardian notion of inward communication of the soul with God and divine symbolism of nature all find adequate expression in

21、Emersonian Transcendentalism. The Transcendentalists emphasis on the individual was directly traceable to the Puritan principle of self-culture and self-improvement as best exemplified by the success story of Americas first self-made man, Benjamin Franklin. New England Transcendentalism was actually

22、 Romanticism on the Puritan soil.,Ralph Waldo Emerson,His life: the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism, which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature. son of a Unitarian minister. born of an impoverished family, but received s

23、ome formal education. While a student at Harvard he began keeping journals, a practice he continued throughout his life. He later drew on the journal for materials for his essays and poetry.,After Harvard, he taught as a schoolmaster, which he soon gave up for the study of theology. He began preachi

24、ng in 1826 and three years later he became a pastor in a church in Boston. Emerson was ardent at first in his service in religion, but gradually grew skeptical of the beliefs of the church; feeling Unitarianism intolerable, he finally left the ministry in l832.,Emerson was greatly influenced by Euro

25、pean Romanticism. He met Carlyle, and listened to some famous Romantic poets like Coleridge and Wordsworth. Through his acquaintance with these men he became closely involved with German idealism and Transcendentalism. After he was back from Europe, Emerson retreated to a quiet study at Concord, Mas

26、sachusetts, where he began to pursue his new path of self-reliance.” Emerson formed a club there at Concord with people like Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, which was later known as the Transcendental Club.,And the unofficial manifesto for the Club was Nature (l836), Emersons first little book

27、, which established him ever since as the most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism. Nature was the fundamental document of his philosophy and expressed also his constant, deeply-felt love for nature. It was called the Manifesto of AmericanTranscendentalism.,He also helped to found an

28、d edit for a time the Transcendental journal, The Dial. Emerson lived an intellectually active and significant life between the mid-1830s and the mid-1840s, lecturing all over the country, and occasionally, abroad. He preached his Transcendental pursuit and his reputation expanded dramatically with

29、his lectures and his essays. Though the rest of Emersons life was a slow anticlimax to his middle years, people continued to honor the most influential prophet and the intellectual liberator of their age, and his reputation as a family man of conventional life and a decent, solid citizen has remaine

30、d always.,His major works:,Emerson is generally known as an essayist. During all his life he worked steadily at a succession of essays, usually derived from his journals or lectures he had already given. Nature did not establish him as an important American writer. His lasting reputation began only

31、with the publication of Essays (1841 ). Many of his famous essays are included in Essays, which convey the best of his philosophical discussions and transcendental pursuits, such as The American Scholar, Self Reliance, The Oversoul.,The second collection of Emersons essays, Essays: Second Series (18

32、44) demonstrated even more thoroughly than the first that Emersons intellect had sharpened in the years since Nature. The Poet and Experience are examples, the former a reflection upon the aesthetic problems in terms of the present state of literature in America and the latter a discussion about the

33、 conflict between idealism and ordinary life.,Emersonian Transcendentalism,Emersonian Transcendentalism is actually a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism, with its focus on the intuitive knowledge of human beings to grasp the

34、absolute in the universe and the divinity of man. In his Essays, Emerson put forward his philosophy of the oversoul, the importance of the Individual, and Nature.,(1) Emersons philosophy of the oversoul,Emerson rejected both the formal religion of the churches and the Deistic philosophy; instead he

35、based his religion on an intuitive belief in an ultimate unity, which he called the over-soul.“ Emerson and other Transcendentalists believed in the transcendence of over-soul. It is an impersonal force that is eternal, moral, harmonious, and beneficent in tendency.,They believed that there should b

36、e an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal oversoul, since the oversoul is an all-pervading power from which all things come from and of which all are a part. One of the tendencies of the oversoul is to express itself in form, hence the world of nature as an emanation

37、of the world of spirit. Emersons remarkable image of a transparent eyeball marks a paradoxical state of being, in which one is merged into nature, the oversoul, while at the same time retaining a unique perception of the experience.,In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that noth

38、ing can befall me in life - no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground - my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egoism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of

39、 the Universal Being circulate through me; I am a part or particle of God (p. 427) What does he mean by a transparent eyeball? Emerson wants us to realize that we are a part of God. We are a transparent eyeball that sees everything. We are a complex part of a bigger design, and only in nature can on

40、e realize this. It is only in nature that we are left with nothing, but faith. Faith that we will forever be protected whether it is by God or nature. Nature tends to give us a sense of peace and tranquility that can only come from God.,Oversoul,Emersons word for God, or Spirit. This pervades the en

41、tire universe. It is a force for good, and it is similar to the puritan conception of God. It is though much more optimistic, less concerned with the evil of man, more willing to find the good in man. We can see the difference to Puritans like Edwards, both in terms of Emersons optimism and his idea

42、 that man has a role at the centre of the universe, since god is all around, and not a vengeful wrathful unforgiving type, more of a benevolent universal spirit. This doctrine is also called pantheism. It is the belief that there is only one God and that he is to be found in all men .,(2)Emersons ph

43、ilosophy of the importance of the Individual,Emerson is affirmative about mans intuitive knowledge, with which a man can trust himself to decide what is right and to act accordingly. The ideal individual should be a self-reliant man. Trust thyself, he wrote in Self Reliance, by which he means to con

44、vince people that the possibilities for man to develop and improve himself are infinite.,(3) Emersons view on nature,Emersons nature is emblematic of the spiritual world, alive with Gods overwhelming presence. It mediates between man and God, and its voice leads to higher truth; hence, it exercises

45、a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. Go back to nature, sink yourself back into its influence and youll become spiritually whole again. By employing nature as a big symbol of the Spirit, or God, or the oversoul, Emerson has brought the Puritan legacy of symbolism to its perfection.,The

46、 essay Nature discusses the love of nature, the uses of nature, the idealist philosophy in relation to nature, evidences of spirit in the material universe, and the potential expansion of human souls and works that will result from a general return to direct, immediate contact with the natural envir

47、onment. In the essay Emerson clearly expresses the main principles of his Transcendentalist pursuit and his love for nature. In expressing his belief in the mystical unity of nature, Emerson develops his concept of the Oversoul or“ Universal Mind. In the above selection Emersons famous metaphor of a

48、 transparent eyeball is employed to illustrate his philosophical discussion. Emersonian Transcendentalism inspired a whole generation of famous American authors like Thoreau, Whitman, and Dickinson.,Thoreaus Transcendentalism,Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is most often mentioned as inspired by Eme

49、rson, the most representative of the philosophical and literary school which is American Transcendentalism. Thoreau embraced his masters ideas as a disciple. In 1845 he built a cabin on some land belonging to Emerson by Walden Pond and moved in to live there in a very simple manner for a little over

50、 two years, which gave birth to a great transcendentalist work Walden (1854). The book not only fully demonstrates Emersonian ideas of self-reliance but also develops and tests Thoreaus own transcendental philosophy.,(1)For Thoreau, nature is not merely symbolic, but divine in itself and human being

51、s can receive precise communication from the natural world by way of pure senses. So he was often alone in the woods or by the pond, lost in spiritual communion with nature.,(2)Thoreau strongly believed in self-culture and was eager to identify himself with the Transcendental image of the self-relia

52、nt man. To achieve personal spiritual perfection, he thinks, the most important thing for men to do with their lives is to be self-sufficient, so he sought to reduce his physical needs and material comforts to a minimum to get spiritual richness.,(3)His positiveness about the importance of individua

53、l conscience was such that he even considered that the society fetters the freedom of individuals. Though Thoreau became more than Emersons disciple eventually, his indebtedness to Nature and its author has never been overlooked.,The style of Emersons essays,Emersons essays often have a casual style

54、, for most of them were derived from his journals or lectures. They are usually characterized by a series of short, declarative sentences, which are not quite logically connected but will flower out into illustrative statements of truth and thoughts. Emersons philosophical discussion is sometimes di

55、fficult to understand but he uses comparisons and metaphors to make the general idea of his work clearly expressed. Well-read in the classics of Western European literature, Emerson often employed these literary sources to make and enrich his own points but never let them take the full reins of his

56、discussion. In general, Emerson was showing to the world a distinctive American style.,A summary,“Nature” (1836), an essay, regarded as a gospel of American transcendentalism. “American Scholar” (1837) delivered as a lecture, called for a distinctive American style, dealing with American subjects; t

57、o declare their independence both as an individual and as a nation. “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”. Other important essays: “The Poet”, “Oversoul” and “Self-Reliance” The Dial: magazine,The core of transcendentalism: Intuition: knowledge can be obtained by an immediate understanding, wit

58、hout conscious reasoning or study. Movement of mental liberation in the development of capitalism. Basic principles: Essentially a form of idealism Moved from the rational to the spiritual The human soul is part of the Oversoul. Every individual is to be respected because everyone has a portion of t

59、hat Oversoul within him. God,Self-Reliance,Published first in 1841 in Essays and then in the 1847 revised edition of Essays, “Self-Reliance” took shape over a long period of time. Throughout his life, Emerson kept detailed journals of his thoughts and actions, and he returned to them as a source for many of his essays. Such is the case with “Self-Reliance,” which includes materials from journal entries dating as far back as 1832. In addition to his journals, Emerson drew on various lectures he delivered between 1836 and 1839.,The first edition of the essay bore thre