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Transcendentalism in the modern world
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Walt Whitman is yet another significant name in the history of transcendentalism. Much like Emerson and Thoreau, Whitman was highly fascinated by nature and the lessons it offered to mankind. The works of Walt Whitman were primarily poems, many of which were free verse. Whitman differs from Thoreau and Emerson in his view of Religion in that Whitman was a man of exploration and ingenuity. This trait of Whitman is what inspired him to envision and create his own private religion. In his early years Walt Whitman was a Quaker. As a Quaker, Whitman enjoyed the teachings of Elias Hicks a friend of his parents. Hicks preached that man’s only duty on earth was to enjoy life to the fullest and stressed the importance of only following the guidance
of one’s own soul. These teachings from Hicks formed the very foundation of Walt Whitman’s own religion. In “Song of Myself” Whitman gives full voice to his private religion. He puts aside the traditional Christian ideas of “God” and “soul” and substitutes his own.
“Everyman, I will go with thee and by thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side,” said Randolf Hayes while talking about Ralph Waldo Emerson. One of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s pieces of literature is The American Scholar. This connects to Jon Krakuaer’s novel, Into the Wild. All of these pieces connect because they all show transcendentalism.
The Transcendentalist ideas that come from philosophers, artists, and religious thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson play a role in shaping the way people think and behave in modern society. The novel Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer and the film based off of this book are about Chris McCandless's separation from his habitual life. This story demonstrates transcendental ideas and the impacts they have on both individuals and society as a whole. He pondered questions such as how world hunger exists and why people are so obsessed with material objects. Chris went from just graduating college, constantly surrounded by people to being completely alone in Alaska. He did not agree with the acquisitive society that we live in and he wanted an escape from his toxic family life.
The 1830s was a time of serious religious conflict. Many people, especially authors, had different opinions on how to find true spirituality. In the end, authors in America created Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement that searches for individual truth through spiritual reflection, complete solitude, and a deep connection with nature. Because this was established by authors, many of them wrote different pieces reflecting and using the beliefs of Transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson was considered to be the father of Transcendentalism. He wrote many influential pieces that follow and emphasize major Transcendental beliefs. The major beliefs include the over-soul, nature, and senses. In addition to those, there are minor beliefs and overall ways of living. These beliefs were included in Transcendental pieces as a general way to share the belief and to create a movement. Due to the use of nature, senses, and the over-soul as its three core Transcendental beliefs, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature” successfully explain the fundamentals of Transcendentalism.
Literature has always been both influenced by history and influential to history. By the early nineteenth century America had already established itself as a nation and was working towards creating a new dream, one they could call their own. However, this new generation of the American people still lacked a sense of self identity. The early nineteenth century proved to be a time where people began to focus more on individualism and self. Transcendentalism became a wide spread philosophy among those searching for a sense of identity. The main concept of Transcendentalism is that enlightenment can only be found within oneself and to understand that everything is interconnected and one with nature (Phillips, William, and Stonestreet 35). While people were still trying to find enlightenment within themselves the writers during this time were determined to create new literature that was “truly native” to the new world and its new ideas (Blair, Dickstein, and Giles). Writers such as William Cullen Bryant, Nathanial Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson published works that helped define
Many people have theories and philosophies about life in general. There have been hundreds of thousands of books published by many different people on the ideas of people in the past and the present. Transcendentalism falls in amongst all of these ideas. There have been articles, essays, poems, and even books written about this subject. Transcendentalism has effected many people since the philosophy was first introduced. The idea was complex and hard to grasp for many commoners and therefore it was understood by few people, and some would think that the idea was not understood at all and that was part of the idea. Henry David Thoreau once stated about himself, “I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations” (Reuben 1).
Transcendentalism is the idea that society has corrupted the individual’s mind. Transcendentalists believe that people are of higher quality when they use their individual mind and are independent of the views of the world (“Transcendentalism”) This movement started in 1836, by three men, and was said to have died out following Margaret Fuller’s death in 1850 (“Transcendentalism”).
During the nineteenth century, some of the most renowned classics of contemporary American literature were written by history’s most cherished writers, one of them being Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne was a dark romantic writer who spent a great deal of time in the company of several other influential writers of his time, many of whom were transcendentalists. Although Hawthorne himself was not a transcendentalist, he lived in community with several of them, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and the Alcott family in Concord, Massachusetts (“Nathaniel”). However, Hawthorne was exposed to transcendentalist views even before this. For six months in 1841, he was a resident at the experimental utopian community of Brook Farm, which
Transcendentalism Transcendentalism was a movement in philosophy, literature, and religion that emerged and was popular in the nineteenth century New England because of a need to redefine man and his place in the world in response to a new and changing society. The industrial revolution, universities, westward expansion, urbanization and immigration all made the life in a city like Boston full of novelty and turbulence. Transcendentalism was a reaction to an impoverishment of religion and mechanization of consciousness of eighteenth century rational doctrines that ceased to be satisfying. After the success of the American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, an American man emerged confident and energetic. However, with the release of nervous energy, an American was forced to look at a different angle at his place in the world and society.
“My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England.”
To trace the origin of the Transcendental movement one needs to go back to the city of Concord, Massachusetts. There during the early 19th century many well-known and world-renowned authors were following the practices of one man, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson, who was considered America's first philosopher, had earlier traveled to Europe and became fascinated by the concepts of one German philosopher known as Kant. According to Emerson's understanding of Kant, there were two pure objects in the world in which are the bases of everything, nature and soul. He took this philosophy and brought it back to America where it later, with the help of Henry David Thoreau, revolutionized American literature.
Walt Whitman will forever live in the minds of individuals as one of America’s greatest poets. People in America and all over the world continue to read and treasure his poetry. He was an original thinker, contributing new modern styles to poetry. He was unafraid of controversy and uninhibited by what others may think of him. He created his own path in poetry, as he describes himself in an anonymous review of his poetry: "But there exists no book or fragment of a book which can have given the hint to them" (Whitman). His poetry was not inspired or affected by those who wrote before him; according to him, his poetry came entirely from "beautiful blood and a beautiful brain" (Whitman). His emphasis on originality, paradoxically, displays how Emerson, a fellow nonconformist, influenced him by stressing the importance of originality and the ability to think without being aided by other people’s words of wisdom. However, while Emerson influenced Whitman, Whitman also affected Emerson’s thoughts, as the two were friends who respected each other’s minds. Another member of this group of nonconformist friends is Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist (Baym 2078).
In every era of civilized society there always is a need to fit in with the crowd. People who go against the crowd are non-conformist or otherwise called transcendentalist. In the movie Dead Poets Society the Vermont based, Welton private school is constructed around strict guidelines. These guidelines must follow the textbook to at and not deter from it. The parents try to reform their sons by limit their latent potential and finding what they want to do in their lives for their own experience. During this movie, the students and Mr. Keating use transcendentalism ideas such as human potential, non-conformity, and truth through observation to become their own image of themselves as they journey through their high school year.
Transcendentalism was initiated by a group of men with various backgrounds bringing literary and philosophical ideas came to life in Boston. America had not yet celebrated its 100th anniversary and was looking for its literary identity. Two of the three main leaders of transcendentalism were Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Puritans Platonism and Neoplatonism, Kantian metaphysics, romanticism, and orientalism and were all major sources of influence on transcendentalism writing. The Puritans and Kantian metaphysics encouraged thinking beyond physical life.
...ement. Whitman took these and brought them to the level of the common man. Man being one with nature as well as one with God was a major reversal in popular ideology within America. No longer was mankind to aspire to the perfection of God, he must merely choose to be such. Whitman had abolished the idea of original sin as casting a pall on the spirit of every man, woman, and child born into the Christian religion. They should not repent and seek redemption, he argued, they should look into this new beginning as a way to create a new self. Whitman thought that man could choose to make his own decisions without an inherent guilt bestowed upon man at the behest of Adam in the Garden of Eden. America was the New Eden. It was up to man to create his own destiny. Above all, these things existed within the grand cosmic structure of the universe and all moved in harmonious conjunction. Nature, man and God all traveled through the great cosmos of space and time as one. Whitman attempted to show that the things which he wrote were not exclusive of one and other, but were intertwined to the very core of each one's existence. It was that idea which stated the true ideals of transcendentalism.
parallelism, and free verse contributed to his beliefs. Whitman was a great writer who brought