1. 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
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2. What does
“transcendentalism” mean?
• There is an ideal spiritual state which
“transcends” the physical and empirical.
• A loose collection of eclectic ideas about
literature, philosophy, religion, social
reform, and the general state of American
culture.
• Transcendentalism had different meanings
for each person involved in the movement.

3. Transcendentalism
• Relationship between man
and nature. Heightened
awareness of this
relationship would cause a
“reformation” of society
away from materialism and
corruption.
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4. Transcendentalism
• A literary movement 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.
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5. 5

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7. Where did it come from?
• Ralph Waldo Emerson gave German
philosopher Immanuel Kant credit for
popularizing the term
“transcendentalism.”
• It began as a reform movement in the
Unitarian church.
• It is not a religion—more accurately, it
is a philosophy or form of spirituality.
• It centered around Boston and
Concord, MA. in the mid-1800’s.

8. What did Transcendentalists
believe?
The intuitive faculty, instead of the
rational or sensical, became the
means for a conscious union of the
individual psyche (known in Sanskrit
as Atman) with the world psyche also
known as the Oversoul, life-force,
prime mover and God (known in
Sanskrit as Brahma).

9. 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 God, but a
preference to explain an
individual and the world in
terms of an individual.

10. Basic Premise #2
The structure of the
universe literally
duplicates the
structure of the
individual self—all
knowledge, therefore,
begins with selfknowledge. This is
similar to Aristotle's
dictum "know thyself."

11. Basic Premise #3
Transcendentalists
accepted the
concept of nature as
a living mystery, full
of signs; nature is
symbolic.

12. 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.

13. Transcendentalism
• 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
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14. Ralph Waldo Emerson
•
•
•
•
1803-1882
Unitarian minister
Poet and essayist
Founded the
Transcendental Club
• Popular lecturer
• Banned from Harvard for
40 years following his
Divinity School address
• Supporter of abolitionism

15. “Self-reliance” -Emerson
• “What I must do is all that concerns me,
not what people think…”
• “…to be great is to be misunderstood”
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16. Henry David Thoreau
• 1817-1862
• Schoolteacher, essayist,
poet
• Most famous for Walden
and Civil Disobedience
• Influenced environmental
movement
• Supporter of abolitionism

17. “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
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18. “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.”
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19. “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.”
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20. Walden
Individuality
• The surface of the earth is soft and impressible
by the feet of men; and so with the paths which
the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then,
must be the highways of the world, how deep
the ruts of tradition and conformity!
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21. • “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.”
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22. “Civil Disobedience”
• Thoreau’s essay urging passive, nonviolent resistance to governmental policies
to which an individual is morally opposed.
• Influenced individuals such a Ghandi, Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez
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23. Amos Bronson Alcott
• 1799-1888
• Teacher and writer
• Founder of Temple
School and Fruitlands
• Introduced art, music,
P.E., nature study, and
field trips; banished
corporal punishment
• Father of novelist Louisa
May Alcott

24. Margaret Fuller
• 1810-1850
• Journalist, critic, women’s
rights activist
• First editor of The Dial, a
transcendental journal
• First female journalist to
work on a major
newspaper—The New
York Tribune
• Taught at Alcott’s Temple
School

25. Ellery Channing
• 1818-1901
• Poet and especially
close friend of
Thoreau
• Published the first
biography of Thoreau
in 1873—Thoreau,
The Poet-Naturalist

26. Resources
• American Transcendental Web:
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/index.html
• American Transcendentalism:
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/amtrans.htm
• PAL: Chapter Four
http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/4intro.html