Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman Literature and Nature University of...
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Transcript of Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman Literature and Nature University of...
![Page 1: Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman Literature and Nature University of Helsinki/ Comparative Literature 11.11.2014 M.A. Pekka Raittinen.](https://reader036.fdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062407/56649d965503460f94a7f274/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Transcendentalism, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman
Literature and NatureUniversity of Helsinki/Comparative Literature11.11.2014M.A. Pekka Raittinen
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Transcend:
transitive verb1 a: to rise above or go beyond the limits of b: to triumph over the negative or restrictive aspects ofc: to be prior to, beyond, and above (the universe or material existence) 2: to outstrip or outdo in some attribute, quality,
or power intransitive verb: to rise above or extend notably
beyond ordinary limits
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Transcendentalism
In New England from (about) 1830’s to 1850’s
Philosophical, literary, social and religious movement?
Time of ”The Great Transformation” in American history => The Depression of 1830’s, immigration, abolitionism …
Concord, Massachusetts
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The Roots of Transcendentalism
Unitarian Church Immanuel Kant: Critique
of Pure Reason => Metaphysical truths unobtainable by reason
German and English Romanticism; Thomas Carlyle
Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg
Eastern philosophies and religions – Hinduism
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Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
Essayist, lecturer, poet…
First studied to be a priest in the Unitarian Church, like his father
”The American Scholar” (1837) => ”Intellectual Declaration of Independence”
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Emerson and Nature
”Nature” (1836); other essays ”Self-Reliance”, ”The Over-Soul”, ”The Poet”
"Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul.“
In nature man is closest to God => “Transparent eyeball”
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Transcendentalism as a social movement
- George Ripley’s Brook Farm and Fruitlands –
Utopian-Socialist communitarism
- Bronson Alcott – experimental pedagogy
- Orestes Brownson ”The Laboring Classes” (1840)
- Margaret Fuller (1810 – 1850) – women’s rights
advocate - Numerous other social
and reform movements; abolitionism, temperance
movement, vegetarism, co-operative societies
etc.
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Life of Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
Born in Concord, worked as a school teacher ”handy-man” and finally as a surveyor
Moved to his Walden Pond cabin on 4th of July 1845
First book A Week on Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
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Walden or Life in the Woods (1854)
Two years in the woods=> but written and re-written over a long period
Year’s cycle in nature => Ends in ”Spring”
Genre? Autobiography? Travel book? Bildungsroman? Pastoral? Epic?
Individualism => The book’s ”I” (”Eye”)
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Thoreau, economy, individual and ecology
Walden’s first chapter ”Economy”
So-called four essentials: ”Food, Clothing, Shelter and Food”
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
Ecological life?
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Other works
”Walking” (1861)Political thought:
”Resistance to Civil Goverment” or ”Civil Disobedience”; ”A Plea For Captain John Brown”; ”Life Without Principle”
”The travel books”: Cape Cod; The Maine Woods
Later interest in natural science; essay ”Wild Apples” among others
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Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)
Continued the Transcendentalist’s ideals in his poetry
Leaves of Grass (1855 – 1881)
Long poem”Song of Myself” => free verse
”Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”; ”Calamus” poems
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Legacy and influence
Quentin Anderson: The Imperial Self (1971)
Walt Whitman => Beat Literature=> 60’s counterculture
Thoreau’s and Emerson’s influence on the environmental movement => John Muir
”Civil Disobedience” => Tolstoy, Gandhi, Martin Luther King
In [American] popular culture, television, movies =>
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Terrence Mallick: The Thin Red Line(1998) and The New World (2005)