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New England Transcendentalism
by Leslie Perrin Wilson, M.S., M.A., Curator of Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library .
"This idea, roughly written in revolutions and national movements, in the mind of
the philosopher had far more precision; the individual is the world."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Historic Notes of Life and Letters in
New England"
Ralph Waldo Emerson (left) was the central and most
influential figure among the group of radical thinkers
and writers of the 1830s-1850s known as the New
England Transcendentalists. His Nature, issued
anonymously in 1836 (the year after he settled
permanently on the Cambridge Turnpike in Concord),
was a systematic exposition of Transcendental
philosophy. Its publication marked the beginning of a
period of intense intellectual ferment and literary
activity by Emerson and the small, loosely associated
group of other writers who comprised the movement.
Section/Group 1:
…At the beginning of Nature, Emerson posed the question, "The foregoing generations
beheld God and nature face to face; we--, through their eyes. Why should not we also
enjoy an original relation to the universe?" The importance he placed upon a direct
relationship with God and nature derived from the concept of the Over-Soul, described
by Emerson in his essay "The Over-Soul" as "that great nature in which we rest ... that
Unity within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all
other." The presence of the divine spirit in both nature and the
human soul made a direct understanding of God and an
Note that an intimate connection with
openness to the natural world avenues to self-understanding as both God and nature is encouraged
and admired in Transcendentalist
well as to the perception of broade truth. Moreover, in each
thought
manifestation of God, man could discover in encapsulated form
all universal laws at work. What was required for this perception
was neither the received dogma of traditional systems of belief
nor rational intellectual insight, but rather a more mystical
human intuition capable of sensing truth and morality in the
various tangible expressions of the divine, including human
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endeavor.
Section/Group 2:
The Transcendental emphasis on the oneness of individual souls with nature and
with God gave dignity and importance to human activity and made possible a belief in
Note the historical
the power to effect social change in harmony with God's purposes.
connection to the
movement
The humanistic focus of Transcendentalism arose partly as a reaction against the
increasing dehumanization and materialism engendered by the Industrial Revolution
in the early 19th century. It was also a response to what
Emerson and his educated contemporaries felt to be the
spiritual inadequacy of established religion.
In his radical "An Address, Delivered Before the Senior Class
in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15,
1838" (known as the "Divinity School Address"), Emerson
What
queried: "In how many churches, by how many prophets, tell does
me, is man made sensible that he is an infinite Soul; that Emerson
claim is
the earth and heavens are passing into his mind; that he is
wrong
drinking forever the soul of God? Where now sounds the
with the
persuasion, that by its very melody imparadises my heart, and so affirms its own origin in church?
heaven? ... But now the priest's Sabbath has lost the splendor of nature; it is unlovely; we
are glad when it is done; we can make, we do make, even sitting in our pews, a far
better, holier, sweeter for ourselves." .is was powerful, controversial criticism. It drew
strong negative reaction, particularly from Harvard professor Andrews Norton.
Section/Group 3:
Certain early Unitarian clergymen, chief among them William Ellery Channing
(1780-1842; uncle of Concord poet William Ellery Channing), had turned away from
unforgiving Congregational Calvinism and preached a more humanistic, emotionally
expressive, and socially conscious form of religion, paving the way for the
Transcendentalists' view of God. But even the liberal Unitarians remained under the
influence of English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), who had explained
knowledge as perceivable only by direct observation through the physical senses.
Transcendental philosophy, on the other hand, was based on the premise that truth is
innate in all of creation and that knowledge of it is intuitive rather than rational. The
Transcendentalists found support for their idea of intuitive thought in the writings of
German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The term "Transcendental," in fact,
came from the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), in which Kant declared, "I call all
knowledge transcendental which is concerned, not with objects, but with our mode of
knowing objects so far as this is possible a priori" (that is, independent of
experience)…
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Transcende
ntalists
believe that
some
knowledge
can be
acquired
and
understood
independent
of
experience,
or put
another
way,
without
actually
having the
experience
Section/Group 4:
…In addition to writing, the Transcendentalists
expressed their idealistic philosophy through lecturing,
through the Socratic dialogue format, and through a
broad range of social reform activities.
Bronson Alcott's teaching technique at his Temple
School in Boston in the mid-1830s and Margaret Fuller's
"Conversations" at Miss Peabody's West Street library
and bookstore in the early 1840s resembled Socrates'
question and answer method of seeking philosophical understanding, as presented in
the dialogues of Plato. The leader of the conversation--Alcott or Fuller--played the role of
Socrates, asking the group of participants questions on a designated philosophical,
literary, aesthetic, or religious topic and giving direction to the course of the discussion.
This interactive process was consistent with the Transcendentalists' faith in intuition as a
means of arriving at universal truth.
Mr. T presented this idea at the start of the semester…recall what it is…
Section/Group 5:
Alcott and Elizabeth Peabody worked toward educational reform. (Alcott served as
Concord's Superintendent of Schools from 1859 to 1865, and in that capacity was given
the opportunity to apply his theoretical optimism to a practical situation.) Thoreau and
(more hesitantly) Emerson were galvanizing speakers and writers on behalf of the
antislavery movement. Feminist Margaret Fuller used her pen to point out injustice in the
circumstances of women's lives. Leaders of the movement established and populated two
experimental utopian communities, Alcott's Fruitlands in Harvard, Massachusetts, and
the larger, longer-lived Brook Farm in West Roxbury. Late in life, well past the peak of
Transcendental activity, the enduring Elizabeth Peabody lent her support to the causes of
woman's suffrage and world peace.
Section/Group 6:
Why
would
Thoreau
search for
truth “in
the
outskirts
of the
system,
behind
the
farthest
star”?
Why
would he
search in
so
isolated
an area?
Thoreau's sojourn at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847 was a deliberate and sustained
attempt to test philosophical idealism in the concrete world. His Walden, or, Life in the
Woods was published in 1854. In the chapter "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,"
Thoreau wrote, "Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the
farthest star ... In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times
and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present
moment ... And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the
perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us." By living intimately
with nature at Walden, Thoreau attained to higher truth.
By 1860, the frenzy of energy and experimentation that had
gripped the Transcendentalists in the 1830s and 1840s had
passed, as had the bitter controversy that their
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What do
their
efforts for
change
express
about
their
attitude
toward
society?
Why do
you think
these
efforts for
change
are
importan
t to them
as
individual
s?
pronouncements had sometimes provoked. Industrialization continued. Inequities were
righted one by one, slowly, rather than through sweeping social change. The lasting
influence of the Transcendentalists rests in the endurance of the major writings produced
by the movement as American classics, worth reading in any period, and in the powerful
inspiration that their reform efforts provided to later social movements, notably the
impetus given to the Mahatma Gandhi and to the American civil rights movement of the
1960s by Thoreau's principle of non-violent resistance to oppressive civil government.
Explain why you believe the Transcendentalist movement influenced
men and women throughout history
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