• Education and Career
– attended Harvard and studied Theology – after graduation taught school for a short time – Later, became pastor of the Second Church of Boston in 1829 – resign ministry in 1831, began literary life – establish a Transcendentalist club and edited the journal the Dial – traveled far and wide in the US, Canada and England, giving numerous lectures to spread his Transcendentalist doctrine
Reading Nature
• In the Presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. (p. 165) • Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or Particle of God. (P. 166)
Evaluation of Emerson
• The most eloquent spokesman of New England Transcendentalism • Emerson’s aesthetics brought about a revolution in American literature in general and in American poetry in particular
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
• Essayist • Poet • Lecturer • Philosopher • Leader of Transcendentalism
Biographical Introduction
• Childhood
– born in Boston, the descendant of a long line of New England clergyman.
• Thirdly, the Transcendentalists offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God.
Reading The American Scholar
• He is the world’s eye. He is the world’s heart… These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular cry… Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom… In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended. Free should be the scholar – free and brave.
Major Works
• Nature (1836)
– “Bible of New England Transcendentalism”
• The American Scholar (1837)
– America’s Intellectual Declaration of Independence
Lecture 11
Ralph Waldo Emerson
By 张慧 hzhang8311@
Contents
• • • • • • • • Ralph Waldo Emerson Biographical Introduction Major Works Reading The American Scholar Reading Nature Reading Self-Reliance Features of Emerson’s works Evaluation of Emerson
• First, the Transcendentalists placed emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. • Secondly, the Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual which they believe as divine and the most important element of society.
Features of
– Nature
• symbol of spirit/ God • the purest, and the most sanctifying moral influence on man
– emphasis on spirit
• firm belief in the transcendence of the Oversoul
– advocates individualism, independence of mind and self-reliance
• Style
– Highly individual – Philosophical
• Each sentence is polished into a striking thought
The “Flowering of New England”: Transcendentalism
• In 1836, the publication of Emerson’s Nature pushes American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism. • Transcendentalism is also called Romantic Idealism.
• The Divinity School Address (1838) • Essays: First series (1841); • Essays: Second Series (1844)
– Self-Reliance
• Representative Men (1850) • English Traits (1856) • Poems (1856)
Reading Self-Reliance
• There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion. • Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. • Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
• The word “transcendental” which comes from Kantian philosophy means “whatever belongs to the class of intuitive thought.”
Features of Transcendentalism
– Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
• He has great influence for centuries extending beyond the literary community to the American people at large
– He was likened to a cow from which all had milk though not all liked the taste
Transcendentalism
• Transcendentalism is a literary, philosophical and artistic movement that flourished in New England from about 1836 to 1860. • According to Emerson, “Transcendentalism” refers to the idealism that appears in 1842. (New Englanders, unhappy, materialistic-oriented life)