Transcendentalists

Alone with Nature

What is Transcendentalism?

• Tenets (Beliefs)– Truth is in nature– Everyone can get it– Social knowledge different than individual

knowledge– Society can and will improve– Individual has effect on community– Non-conformity– Self-reliance

• Authors:– Emerson– Thoreau– Fuller

Historical Context

• 1830s-1860s– Mexican American War– Civil War

• Centered at Harvard University• Inspired by German Philosopher

Immanuel Kant• Originally Transcendentalism used as

a put-down. They like it so it stays as their title

Henry David Thoreau

• 1817-1862• Upbringing:–Parents owned a little store–They worked as pencil makers

• Education–Harvard–Labeled as failure

Henry David Thoreau

• Activist and Intellectual–“We need to”–Wants change in individual–Tree hugger

• Significant works:–Resistance to Civil Government–Walden–Slavery in Massachusetts

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Education– Mary Moody Emerson (aunt) in charge– Wanted to go to Harvard

• Anti-Slavery• Self-Reliance– Man is disunited with self until one with nature– Nature is a symbol of your spirit

• Anti-Institutionalism– Change in individual will result in change of

society

Margaret Fuller• Education

– Educated by father who was a lawyer at Cambridge– Would educate other women through

“conversations” she published• Journalism

– She writes for “The Dial” a Transcendentalist newspaper

– Writes about women’s rights• “The Great Lawsuit: Men vs. Men and Women vs. Women”• “Women in the Nineteenth Century”

• Death– Dies with her family in a shipwreck off of New York– Just returning from revolution in Italy