The era of romanticism in American literature was the beginning of the development of all fiction, and transcendentalism was the first independent trend in philosophy and literature.
what is Transcendentalism ?
Transcendentalism is a literary and philosophical movement that was officially formed in 1836 and adopted many features of romanticism; Romanticism, transcendentalism agreed with the words of Immanuel Kant that reality exists only in our minds, thereby rejecting the idea of total rationalism that dominated throughout the 19th century. Although the continuity is clear, many of the basic ideas have undergone some fairly significant changes, as will become clear when analyzing the two key essays "Nature" (from the English "Nature") and "Confidence in yourself" (from the English "Self-reliance"), written by the and the main figure in transcendentalism.
transcendentalism is characterized by the following features:
- Individualism.
- Orientation to the present.
- transcendental escapism.
- Belief in a deified, healing nature.
- Emphasis on sensory perception of reality.
- Idealism in feelings and actions.
- sacralization of language.
- Humanism.
- Nonconformism.
- The intrinsic value of the spiritual life.
Transcendentalism is the first independent American trend in philosophy and literature. Its development is directly related to attempts to comprehend the features of life in the New World - the proximity of wild nature, the independence and individualism of Americans.
Let's find out how transcendentalism arose and name the main names 👇
📖 Transcendentalism originated in New England culture. In the town of Concord, not far from Boston, a whole colony of writers, philosophers and artists gathered. Their common ideals are a simple but spiritual life, freedom from the pursuit of material success, deep meaningful communication, the value of individual experience and solitude. Political ideas were also important to them: freedom, equality and human rights. They were active abolitionists - supporters of the abolition of slavery.
👤 By 1836, all the creators of transcendentalism lived in Concord - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, as well as writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, poet William Ellery Channing, preacher Theodore Parker and others.
👨🦱 Philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was the main theorist of transcendentalism. His most famous work - the treatise "Nature" (1836) - begins with a call to abandon the burden of history and other people's ideas, to stop looking at the world through the eyes of ancestors. We need a personal, original view of the world, a person must rely on himself, on his own mind and experience in everything.
🌱 Connection with nature is a must to embark on this path. Contemplation of wild nature, amazement at its forces give a person an invaluable sense of unity, the connectedness of the world and the consciousness of one's true place in it.
📿 Emerson was influenced by the ideas of Eastern teachings - Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism. He sought in them an alternative to the narrower European worldview. One of his best poems is Brahma, a romantic interpretation of Indian philosophy.
🙇 In practice, transcendentalism requires deep introspection. Emerson kept a diary all his life, starting from his student years at Harvard, and used daily thoughts and observations in his essays. Literature, philosophy and inner work on himself were one thing for him.
👩🏻 Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) relied on the ideas of the Transcendentalists in her political journalism. Her most famous book is Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845). She motivates the demand for gender equality primarily by the value of individual independence for each person. Freedom must be universal, the development of the individual must not be limited by any form of social discrimination. Fuller was an eminent journalist, editor of the transcendentalist journal The Dial, and translator of the German Romantics and Goethe.
👨🦰 Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), even more insistently than Emerson, demanded that the thinker conform to his ideas in real life. To be a philosopher, he believed, means not only to think, but also to live in accordance with one's values: for Thoreau it is simplicity, independence, generosity, trust.
📖 Thoreau's main themes are human self-sufficiency and closeness to nature. During his life, he deliberately retired from society several times - first he traveled, and then turned to hermitage. Like Emerson, he kept diaries: they formed the basis of his main work - the book "Walden, or life in the forest."
As an illustration of how culture affects consciousness, we can cite the concept of field dependence and field independence according to Herman Witkin, an American psychologist who specialized in cognitive psychology. Field dependence means the eastern view of the world, when the surrounding reality is considered as a whole. For example, children in Japan draw their home and family in the third person, rather than in the second, as in the West, because it is important for them to preserve the integrity of the picture. Field-dependent cultures view the world as a harmonious set of interactions in which everything is interconnected, while field-independent cultures try to comprehend the internal properties of objects or phenomena. A person who smiles among a group of sad people, from the point of view of field-dependent cultures, cannot be happy. Looking at the picture, man
Nevertheless, the actual impossibility of implementing the theory in practice does not negate the significance of those wonderful poetic works that the transcendentalists left behind.