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Transcendentalism, Anti-Transcendentalism and the Dark Romantics

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Title: Transcendentalism, Anti-Transcendentalism and the Dark Romantics


1
Transcendentalism, Anti-Transcendentalism and the
Dark Romantics
  • Mr. Feraco
  • American Literature
  • Period 4 November 26th, 2007

2
America coming of age
  • Landscape and culture were developing and finding
    a place in a literature distinct from European
    models
  • This literary period is often described as a
    renaissance or rebirth (in comparison to the
    European Renaissance of the 14th-16th centuries)
    because of the cultural development between
    1840-1860.

3
Social improvement
  • Other reformers Horace Mann (improve public
    education), Dorothea Dix (relieve horrible
    conditions in institutions for the mentally ill),
    William Lloyd Garrison (abolish slavery),
    Elizabeth Peabody, Margaret Fuller and Emma
    Willard (womens rights).
  • Many utopian projects were created in an attempt
    to perfect society. Utopia ideal and perfect
    state
  • New England was experiencing a period/movement of
    self-improvement and intellectual inquiry called
    Lyceum.
  • Goals of this movement training teachers,
    establishing museums, and instituting social
    reforms.
  • Emerson provided a series of lectures on
    self-improvement. Emersons utopian group became
    known as The Transcendental Club.

4
What does Transcendentalism mean?
  • Definition in determining the ultimate reality
    of God, the universe, the self and other
    important matters, one must transcend, or go
    beyond, everyday human experience in the physical
    world.

5
Where does Transcendentalism come from?
  • The term transcendental came from 18th century
    German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
  • Transcendentalism originated from the past idea
    of Idealism (created by Greek philosopher Plato
    in 4th century BC).
  • Idealismtrue reality involved ideas rather than
    the world perceived by the senses. They wanted
    to look past physical appearances to see
    permanent reality and truth.
  • Transcendentalists were Idealists in a broader,
    more practical sense. They believed in human
    perfectibility as an achievable goal and worked
    to achieve it.

6
Characteristics
  • Everything in the world, including human beings,
    is a reflection of the Divine Soul.
  • The physical facts of the natural world are a
    doorway to the spiritual or ideal world which
    hold important truths.
  • People can use their intuition to behold Gods
    spirit revealed in nature or their own souls.
  • Spontaneous feelings and intuition are superior
    to deliberate intellectualism and rationality.

7
Most well-known Transcendentalist authors
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau

8
The most famous TranscendentalistRalph Waldo
Emerson
  • Emerson was the best-known and most influential
    transcendentalist.
  • What he combined into transcendentalism
  • Puritan thought (God revealed himself through the
    Bible and the physical world)
  • The beliefs of Jonathan Edwards (who found Gods
    wisdom, purity and love in the sun, moon and
    stars and in all of nature)
  • And the Romantic tradition (nature)
  • He viewed the world based on intuition - the
    capacity to know things spontaneously and
    immediately through our emotions rather than
    through reason and logic.
  • He possessed an intense feeling of optimism that
    stemmed from the belief that God could be found
    directly through nature (even tragic natural
    events such as death, disaster and disease).

9
Emersons beliefs continued
  • God is good and works through nature.
  • Death, disease and disasters have a spiritual
    explanation.
  • Evil stems from a separation from a direct,
    intuitive knowledge of God.
  • One must know God directly to realize that they
    are a part of the Divine Soul (universe), which
    is the source of all good.
  • The optimism of Emerson and transcendentalism was
    appealing because of what was happening in
    society at the time economic downturns, regional
    strife, conflict over slavery.

10
  • The appeal of Emersons optimism and
    transcendentalism was a result of what was
    happening in society at the time economic
    downturns, regional strife, conflict over
    slavery.

11
Anti-Transcendentalists aka Dark Romantics
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville
  • Unlike Emerson and transcendentalism, their view
    of the world lacked optimism. They saw a dark
    side to human existence and recorded this aspect
    of human nature in their works.
  • Similarities to transcendentalism valued
    intuition over reason, saw signs and symbols in
    events, spiritual facts lie behind physical
    appearances.
  • Differences spiritual facts are not necessarily
    good or harmless.
  • Their view developed from the mystical and
    melancholy aspects of Puritan thought.
  • Their works explored the conflict between good
    and evil, psychological effects of guilt and sin,
    and madness and derangement in human psyche.
  • They saw the blankness and the horror of evil
    within humanity.

12
Where does Edgar Allen Poe fit in?
  • Although often considered a Dark Romantic, Poe
    can be viewed more as a Gothic writer.
  • Poes works strongly represent Gothic elements
    more so than valuing intuition over reason or
    examining the natural world for God and spiritual
    truths.

13
Gothic literature
  • Supernatural events  ghosts, doors that open
    themselves, unexplained sounds, etc.
  • Damsels in distress are frequent.  Women who are
    frightened and confused, wandering around lost,
    or dying due to a slow and unexplainable ailment.
  • Words designed to evoke images of gloom and doom
    dark, foreboding, forbidding, ghostly, etc.
  • Romantic themes often involve the death of a man
    or woman in the throes of some great passion, the
    obsessive nature of a man or woman in love, or
    excessive grief one feels upon the loss of a
    loved one.
  • Settings- include large, drafty old houses that
    have "been in the family for years." 
  • Atmosphere of mystery and suspense
  • A ghostly legend, an unexplainable occurrence, or
    a story about a horrible death or murder .
  • Omens, foreshadowing, and dreams usually play a
    large role in the mysterious air that is created
    within the story.
  • Include highly charged emotional states like 
    terror, a feeling that one is on the brink of
    insanity, anger, agitation, an exaggerated
    feeling of some impending doom, and obsessive
    love.
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