Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism Romanticism Dark Romanticism
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TRANSCENDENTALISM

• The belief that all beings are spiritually
  connected by some sort of Over-Soul.

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Writers of Transcendentalism

• Emerson
• And
• Thoreau

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EMERSON

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• (1803-1882)
• Hitch your wagon to a star.

                  
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Ideas on Transcendentalism

• As thinkers, mankind have ever divided into two
  sects, Materialists and Idealists
• The materialist insists on facts, on history, on
  the force of circumstances, and the animal wants
  of man the idealist on the power of Thought and
  of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on
  individual culture.

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Essays in The Dial

• The Editor to the Reader
• Thoughts on Modern Literature
• New Poetry
• Two Years Before the Mast
• Social Destiny of Man
• These are only a few of many from the years of
  1840-1844.

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Our Readings-Emerson

• The Dial
• Nature
• Self-Reliance
• Snowstorm
• Concord Hymn

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THOREAU

• Henry David Thoreau
• (1817-1862)
• Many go fishing all their lives without knowing
  that it is not fish they are after.

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Thoreau and Transcendentalism

• After a brief career in education, he spent the
  years between 1841 and 1843 doing odd jobs for
  Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family, with whom he
  resided. In 1845, he moved to a hut on Walden
  Pond and spent two years growing food and
  thinking.
• Thoreau was one of the great Transcendentalists
  and espoused some of the ideas associated with
  this movement. Works such as Resistance to
  Civil Government, for example, demonstrate the
  value he placed both on nature and the
  individual.

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Dial Contributions 1842-44

• Natural History of Massachusetts
• The Laws of Menu
• Ethnical Scriptures Chinese Four Books
• Ethnical Scriptures Sayings of Confucius

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Our Readings-Thoreau

• Walden (excerpts)

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ROMANTICISM

• Elevates imagination over reason and intuition
  over fact.

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Writers of Romanticism

• IRVING
• COOPER
• BRYANT
• POE

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Washington Irving

• Washington Irving
• (1783-1859) - pseudonyms Dietrich
  Knickerbocker, Jonathan Oldstyle, Geoffrey Crayon
  
• "I am always at a loss to know how much to
  believe of my own stories."

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Irving-Our Readings

• The Devil and Tom Walker
• Told by an Omniscient Narrator-all knowing
  narrator, but NOT a participant in the story.
  This narrator stands outside the action and
  relates the thoughts and feelings of ALL the
  character
• Best known for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,
  written under the pseudonym, Geoffrey Crayon.

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JAMES FENIMORE COOPER

• James Fenimore Cooper
• (1789-1851)
• Left the notes that inspired Old Ironsides
  written by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

• William Cullen Bryant
• (1794-1878)
• "Weep not that the world changes - did it keep a
  stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to
  weep"
•  

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Bryant-Our Reading

• Thanatopsis
• Meter-an arrangement of stressed and unstressed
  syllables.
• Foot-the basic unit of meter.

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EDGAR ALLAN POE

• EDGAR ALLAN POE
• 1809 - 1849
• I have great faith in fools self-confidence my
  friends call it.

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POE-Our Reading

• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Single effect-A story should be constructed to
  achieve a certain unique or single-effect.
• Every character, detail and incident should
  contribute to this single effect.

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DARK ROMANTICISTS

• Hawthorne
• Melville

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Dark Romanticism

• Dark Romanticist writers basically had the same
  ideas that imagination presided over reason and
  that intuition presided over fact however, the
  dark romanticist writers refuted
  transcendentalist writers much more so than the
  basic romantic writers because they wrote and
  believed that there is an evil side to humans,
  nature, and humanity.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• (1804-1864)
• A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

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Hawthorne-Our Reading

• The Ministers Black Veil
• Allegory-A work of literature in which events,
  characters, and details of setting have a
  symbolic meaning.
• What was the symbolic meaning of the ministers
  black veil?

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HERMAN MELVILLE

• Herman Melville
• (1819-1891)
• But it is better to fail in originality than to
  succeed in imitation.

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Melville-Our Reading

• Moby Dick
• Symbol-A symbol is a person, place or thing that
  has a meaning in itself and also represents
  something larger.
• Ex The American Flag symbolizes the characters
  and values of our country.