In the mids, Ralph Waldo Emerson created a belief called Transcendentalism. He wrote the essay, “Self Reliance” and Henry David Thoreau, another Transcendentalist wrote an essay called, “Walden.”. Both works of literature focus on the Transcendentalism belief Start studying Transcendentalism Essays. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools Samuel Johnson, in his essay "Transcendentalism," analogizes the Transcendental desire for a new vision of nature and a new mode of thought: Ask a dozen men to think of an external object, say a tree: they all turn in one direction, and a supposed common sensation disguises their individuality; but ask them to look at the mental process by
Transcendentalism Essays: Examples, Topics, Titles, & Outlines
Support the Archive. Properly speaking, for geographical and social reasons, Walt Whitman was not transcendentalism essays transcendentalist, since transcendentalism was a New England phenomenon affecting American scholars and clergymen's relatives. Yet he can be considered the poet of transcendentalism whose coming Emerson had prophesied, but which he failed to be himself, transcendentalism essays, because his poetry was more intellectual than inspired and was, besides, hampered by the straitjacket of traditional prosody.
Emerson remained on the threshold of the Promised Land, but his works were the fountain-spring of Whitman's poetry, if we are to believe what Whitman himself said on several occasions, notably to J. Trowbridge in "I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil" qtd. in Trowbridge Trowbridge adds: "He freely admitted transcendentalism essays could never have written his poems if he had not first 'come to himself,' and that Emerson helped him to 'find himself'" No wonder Whitman addressed Emerson as "Master" transcendentalism essays the open letter he appended to the edition of Leaves of Grass, transcendentalism essays.
Later, however, he tried to minimize and even deny Emerson's influence, particularly through the medium of John Burroughs's Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person : "[U]p to the time he published the quarto edition [of ]. Emerson at all. This is positively true" 16— He was even more categorical in in a letter to W. Kennedy: "It transcendentalism essays of no importance whether I had read Emerson before starting L of G or not. The fact happens to be positively that I had not " Correspondence transcendentalism essays Actually, whether Emerson was the direct source of Whitman's ideas or not, the fact remains that there are striking similarities between the main themes of Leaves of Grass and the basic tenets of New England transcendentalism, transcendentalism essays.
First of all, transcendentalism essays, both Emerson and Whitman had the revelation of the existence of God in the course of a mystical experience. Similarly, Whitman on "a transparent summer morning" discovered "the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth" and knew that the "spirit of God is the brother of my own" "Song of Myself," section 5. He never used the word "oversoul," as did Emerson, but his "general soul" "Chanting the Square Deific," section 4 also circulates through everything that exists and consequently makes all creatures equally divine, men in particular, transcendentalism essays.
For Whitman as for Emerson, the true miracles were not those which are reported in the Bible, but the humblest existences around us, the "limitless. And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap'd stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed" "Song of Myself," section 5. Whitman knew "of nothing else but miracles. The catalogues he so frequently inserted in his poems were catalogues of miracles. In his eyes, transcendentalism essays, all things were both physical and spiritual presences, transcendentalism essays.
According to him, material things have a secret meaning which transcends them. They are symbols; they carry messages. I find letters from God dropt in the street and every one is sign'd by God's name" "Song of Myself," section Grass is "the handkerchief of the Lord. Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and transcendentalism essays, and say Whose?
O spirituality of things! In the same way, for Emerson, "the world is a temple whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures and commandments of the Deity" Transcendentalism, as Emerson pointed out, was a form of idealism: "[T]he Idealism of the present day acquired the name transcendentalism essays Transcendental from the use of that term by Immanuel Kant, of Königsberg.
There were times when Whitman, too, tended towards idealism: "May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills, transcendentalism essays, shining and flowing waters. may-be these are as doubtless they are only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known" "Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances". Transcendentalism is a form of monism, but Whitman's implicit metaphysics is based on the dualism matter-spirit. For the transcendentalists as for Whitman, the poet is a seer; he sees the "vast similitude" which "interlocks all" "On the Beach at Night Alone", transcendentalism essays.
In the dislocated physical world made up of apparently separate objects in which we live, he knows how to reattach them to the great Whole. He has a sense of the infinity and unity of space and time. He is constantly aware of the existence of the soul, "the permanent identity, the thought, the something. that fully satisfies. That something is the All, and the idea of the All, with the accompanying idea of eternity" Prose Works Poets are thus constantly in touch with the divine something which speaks through them.
in Asselineau They are inspired and their songs spring from "irresistible impulses" ["So Far, and So Far, and on Toward the End"]. True poems transcendentalism essays the result of an inner urge and their growth is organic, transcendentalism essays. For Emerson a poem, "like the spirit of a plant or transcendentalism essays animal. has an architecture of its own and transcendentalism essays nature with a new thing" ; for Thoreau similarly, transcendentalism essays naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem" 74 ; and for Whitman, "The rhyme and uniformity of perfect poems show the free growth of metrical laws, and transcendentalism essays from them as unerringly and loosely as lilacs and roses on a bush" Prose Works There is thus a constant parallelism between Leaves of Grass and Emerson's thought, but actually, for all his admiration and possible indebtedness to Emerson, Whitman did not in all respects follow the example of his so-called Master.
He parted company with him and boldly struck out for himself, preferring the open road leading to the future rather than the beaten tracks of the genteel tradition. The greatest originality of Leaves of Grass and Whitman's most important departure from transcendentalism was the place he gave to the body.
In his poems the word "body" is surrounded by the same halo of mystery and infinity as the word "soul" in the works of other poets. He never uses the word "soul" without immediately reminding us of the existence of the body: "I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul" "Song of Myself," section He went even farther; he exalted sex, which was not even mentioned or alluded to by the New England transcendentalists, heirs of the Pilgrim Fathers' puritanism.
He was no "transparent eyeball" like Emerson Emerson He had a solid body covered with feelers all over; he was "the caresser of life" "Song transcendentalism essays Myself," section Emerson and Thoreau would not willingly have subscribed to such a statement as "[c]opulation is no more rank to me than death transcendentalism essays "Song of Myself," section Such sensuality was alien to the transcendentalists.
Another difference was that Whitman, transcendentalism essays, although he sometimes referred to himself as "solitary," believed in man "en-masse" and had faith in democracy: "mine a word of the modern, transcendentalism essays, the word En-Masse," he declares in "Song of Myself" section 23and adds, "I speak the pass-word primeval, transcendentalism essays, I give the sign of democracy" section Emerson, on the other hand, affirms, transcendentalism essays, "Society is good when it does not violate me, but best when it is likest to solitude" He felt that the "solitary and fastidious manners" of the transcendentalists "not only withdraw them from the conversation, but from the labors of the world.
They do not even like to vote" — There was a considerable difference between living in rural Concord or Cambridge and living in cosmopolitan and turbulent New York. It was difficult for a New Yorker to ignore politics. Despite a number of differences, Whitman was fundamentally in communion with the transcendentalists. He was like them the priest of a new religion without priests, although he was in a way excommunicated by Transcendentalism essays, who did not include him in his Parnassus.
A further resemblance between Emerson and Whitman is that neither the pure transcendentalists nor Whitman were set in their attitudes.
They were equally open-minded and contemptuous of rational consistency. Asselineau, Roger, transcendentalism essays. The Evolution of Walt Whitman: The Creation of a Book. Cambridge, Mass. Burroughs, John. Notes transcendentalism essays Walt Whitman as Poet and Person. New York: Haskell House, Emerson, Ralph Waldo, transcendentalism essays. Essays and Lectures. Joel Porte.
New York: Library of America, Fredman, Stephen. The Grounding of American Poetry: Charles Olson and the Emersonian Tradition, transcendentalism essays.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, transcendentalism essays, Gura, Philip F. Critical Essays on American Transcendentalism. Boston: Hall, Loving, transcendentalism essays, Jerome. Joel Myerson.
New York: MLA, transcendentalism essays, Thoreau, Henry David. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; Walden, or, Life in the Woods; The Maine Woods; Cape Cod.
Robert F. Trowbridge, John Townsend, transcendentalism essays. Whitman, Walt. The Correspondence. Edwin Haviland Miller. New York: New York UP, — Prose Works Floyd Stovall. Support the Archive About the Archive. Distributed under a Creative Commons License. Price, editors. Transcendentalism essays Walt Whitman Archive.
LITERATURE - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Transcendentalism is a form of monism, but Whitman's implicit metaphysics is based on the dualism matter-spirit. For the transcendentalists as for Whitman, the poet is a seer; he sees the "vast similitude" which "interlocks all" ("On the Beach at Night Alone") In the mids, Ralph Waldo Emerson created a belief called Transcendentalism. He wrote the essay, “Self Reliance” and Henry David Thoreau, another Transcendentalist wrote an essay called, “Walden.”. Both works of literature focus on the Transcendentalism belief Dec 07, · Transcendentalism The Perversion of the American Dream The oracle of transcendentalism, Ralph aldo Emerson, and his acetic companion and one-time roommate Henry David Thoreau (that's correct, when Thoreau got tired of sleeping in the forest, he moved in with Emerson and his family for a few weeks) both had a lot to say about man, nature, the nature of man, and the
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