An overview

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American Transcendentalism

• An overview
• Of key Terms and Figures

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Transcendentalism Some attempts at a Definition

• Walter Leighton The doctrine that man has a
  knowledge of philosophic principles by an
  immediate beholding without the process of reason
  or aid of experience. similar to Wordsworths
  spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling
• Kenneth Walter Cameron the American tributary
  of European Romanticism . . . a new humanism
  based upon ancient classical or Neo-Platonic
  supernaturalism and colored by Oriental
  mysticism. 
• Merle Curti a revolt against the rationalism
  of the 18th century. It emphasized those aspects
  of mans nature that were said to transcend or be
  independent of experience. 
• Odell Shepard Transcendentalism was in essence
  a philosophy and a religion of reform.
• Charles Mayo Ellis - This, then, is the doctrine
  of Transcendentalism, the substantive,
  independent existence of the soul of man, the
  reality of conscience, the religious sense, the
  inner light, of mans religious affections, his
  knowledge of right and truth, his sense of duty .
  . . His love for beauty and holiness, his
  religious aspirationswith this is starts as
  something not dependent on education, custom,
  command, or anything beyond man himself.
• James Murdock - Spontaneous Reason acquaints us
  with the true and essential nature of things.
•  

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Key Theological Terms

• Congregationalism a system of church
  organization maintaining ecclesiastical
  sovereignty that is, holding individual
  congregations as self supporting and independent
  from any central doctrinal or organizational
  governance. Church of the Puritans.
• Trinitarianism Theological belief that God is
  triumvirate, associated with Catholicism and its
  following churches (Anglican, Eastern Orthodox,
  etc.), and recognizing the traditional doctrine
  of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christ
  is, therefore, pre-existent and divine, of God.
•  Unitarianism Theological perspective that
  rejects the trinity, viewing God as a singular
  entity more progressive wing calls into question
  the divinity of Jesus Christ, viewing Christ as a
  prophet, rather than an element or incarnation of
  God. Reason, science, and philosophy co-exist
  with faith in God.
• Antinomianism a Christian heresy maintaining
  that the dictates of the Holy Spirit upon the
  individual soul must take precedence over the
  conventions of law and doctrine, ie. faith trumps
  law.

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Key Philosophical Terms

• Romanticism European intellectual and artistic
  movement led by German philosophers and embraced
  by British literary artists. Emphasized beauty
  of nature, preeminence of individual over the
  collective, objected to social constraints, and
  valued emotional and intuitive perception over
  reason.
• Materialism Contends that the practical,
  physical needs of the material body dictate its
  primary order and that reality is a value of
  matter and energy.
• Idealism Contends that reality as we know it is
  primarily a mental construct and that
  supernatural or ideational awareness can
  supersede material value or reality.
• Higher Criticism Biblical scholars who sought to
  find the meaning of the world behind the text
  by examining its originary contexts and meanings
  as opposed to those lower critics for whom the
  text itself was the focus of study and
  theological meaning. A more historically and
  metaphorically informed reading of scriptural
  texts than the literal text-based scholarship
  that had preceded it.

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Key Creations

• Lyceum Movement an early social experiment in
  adult education community organized
  presentations and entertainments that supported
  travelling lecturers and performers while also
  serving social functions. (modeled after
  Aristotles Lykium in Athens, Greece)
• Catalogue Rhetoric the spontaneous listing of
  elements and aphorisms that is characteristic of
  Transcendentalist writing. Perhaps reaches its
  apex in the poetry of Whitman.
• The Dial From its inception in 1840 to its
  closing in 1844, this was the primary journal of
  Transcendentalist thought.
• Brook Farm Early (failed) experiment in
  socialist living, led by George Ripley.
• Education Reform Early experiments in education
  reform led to establishment of Kindergarten and
  of other progressive models.

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• Key Figures of the
• Transcendentalist
• Movement

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James Marsh

• (1794-1842) Congregationalist minister, literary
  critic and translator. Early proponent of
  Coleridge and German thinkers, his explanation of
  the separation of implicit Reason from empirical
  proof greatly influenced Transcendentalisms
  development.

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Frederic Henry Hedge

• (1805-1890) Unitarian minister and primary
  founder, with Emerson and Ripley, of the
  Transcendentalist Club (originally termed
  Hedges Club). Like Marsh, one of the
  earliest, strongest proponents of the new German
  philosophy and theology.

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George Ripley

• (1802-1880) Unitarian minister, one of the
  founders of the Transcendentalist Club (first
  meeting held in his home). Left ministry to
  become principle founder of Brook Farm,
  experiment in communal living.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

• (1803-1882) Effectively the leading spokesperson
  for the Transcendentalist movement, he became the
  most successful lecturer of his age, a widely
  published essayist and poet. His work emphasizes
  the sanctity of the individual.

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Bronson Alcott

• (1799-1888) Perhaps the most passionate of the
  early Transcendentalists, Alcott was a writer,
  teacher, and education reformer. Founder of both
  an experimental school and the Fruitlands utopian
  community, both of which failed in practice but
  lent lasting ideas for future reformers. Father
  of Louisa May Alcott, whose novels and stories
  borrow heavily from her experiences growing up
  among the Transcendentalists.

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Orestes Brownson

• (1803-1876) Founder of the influential Boston
  Quarterly Review, Brownson was of modest means
  and trained as a Universalist minister. He
  converted to Unitarianism and became a leading
  early proponent of Transcendentalism. Earliest
  to embrace social causes of poor later became
  critical of what he saw as elitism and
  intellectualism without action within movement.
  This led to his conversion to Catholicism and
  embrace of that religions doctrine of Charity.
  Later, published Brownsons Quarterly Review.

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Henry David Thoreau

• (1817-1862) Emersons most famous follower and
  friend, Thoreau ultimately broke beyond Emersons
  implicit conservatism to forge a more radical
  vision of individual rights and the limitations
  of the state. Perhaps the most influential
  Transcendentalist thinker to today.

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Margaret Fuller

• (1810-1850) Perhaps the first American woman to
  make a living as a full-time writer as a
  journalist and book reviewer, certainly one of
  our earliest feminist voices. Widely recognized
  as the best read person in New England, man or
  woman, she was the first woman given access to
  the Harvard Library and served as the first
  editor of The Dial. Died in shipwreck Thoreau
  sent to recover her body.

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Theodore Parker

• (1810-1860) Reformist Unitarian minister, early
  member of the Transcendentalist Club. Unlike
  most in movement, of humble origins.
  Controversial higher critical views included
  denying Biblical miracles and divinity of Jesus.
  Called for an intuitive faith led by inner light,
  not the textual strictures of dogma. Staunch
  supporter the Social Gospel of reformist
  causes, including abolitionism, temperance, and
  womens rights.

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Elizabeth Peabody

• (1804-1894) Businesswoman and educator, her West
  Street Bookstore stocked many influential and
  difficult-to-procure German titles and also
  provided space for Margaret Fullers series of
  Conversations for women. Served as Business
  Manager for The Dial and, later, founded first
  Kindergarten in U.S.

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Thomas Wentworth Higginson

• (1823-1911) Second generation Transcendentalist,
  Unitarian minister and staunch abolitionist
  during 1840s-50s. Led the 1st South Carolina
  Volunteers, the first regiment of freed
  African-American slaves to serve in the Civil
  War. Effectively discovered and mentored Emily
  Dickinson and served as her editor after her
  death.

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Jones Very

• (1813-1880) Second generation Transcendentalist.
  A Shakespearean scholar, he was also influenced
  by the British Romantics to forge a neo-Classical
  poetry that sought to spread the
  Transcendentalist message. Saw himself as a
  prophet and suffered emotional collapse in later
  life.

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Walt Whitman

• (1819-1892) Poet, essayist, and journalist,
  deeply influenced by the Transcendentalists in
  both their humanism and in their invention of
  catalog rhetoric, which he used to become the
  father of American blank verse. His frank
  treatment of sexuality led to charges of
  obscenity for his work. Devoted his life to
  writing and revising his masterwork, Leaves of
  Grass.

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• Additional
• Stuff

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• A brotherhood of the like-minded (that included
  sisters)
• Why should any religion institution have greater
  claim to authority than the individual conscience
  or inner light?
• The first group of American intelligentsia to
  advocate that the great nonwestern religious
  traditions be taken seriously as possible paths
  to religious understanding.

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