Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are the central figures in the American Transcendentalist movement. We will look at both men as writers of essays that helped define a uniquely American culture.

Trancendentalism

These people, mostly New Englanders, mostly around Boston, were attempting to create a uniquely American body of literature. It was already decades since the Americans had won independence from England. Now, these people believed, it was time for literary independence. And so they deliberately went about creating literature, essays, novels, philosophy, poetry, and other writing that were clearly different from anything from England, France, Germany, or any other European nation.

Another way to look at the Transcendentalists is to see them as a generation of people struggling to define spirituality and religion (our words, not necessarily theirs) in a way that took into account the new understandings their age made available. -- What is Transcendentalism?

While transcendentalism in America was characterized by a rejection of European influcences, European transcendentalists shared the Americans' desire to embrace intuition and inspiration. The transatlantic movement was a reaction against the cold rationalism of the Enlightenment. The Englightenment was, of course, a reaction against Romanticism (which celebrated noble human passions such as heroism and patriotism, in addition to lofty love) and against traditional religion (with its rituals and mysteries).

Thoreau, who is revered as America's first ecologist, was Emerson's protege. When Thoreau died young, Emerson wrote, in his eulogy of Thoreau, a passage that helps explain both men's philosophy:

No truer American existed than Thoreau. His preference of his country and condition was genuine, and his aversion from English and European manners and tastes almost reached contempt. He listened impatiently to news or bonmots gleaned from London circles; and though he tried to be civil, these anecdotes fatigued him. The men were all imitating each other, and on a small mould. Why can they not live as far apart as possible, and each be a man by himself? What he sought was the most energetic nature; and he wished to go to Oregon, not to London. "In every part of Great Britain," he wrote in his diary, "are discovered traces of the Romans, their funereal urns, their camps, their roads, their dwellings. But New England, at least, is not based on any Roman ruins. We have not to lay the foundations of our houses on the ashes of a former civilization."

Required Readings

Emerson: (biography) Read Ann Woodlief's Study Questions for "Self Reliance" (I'm not actually going to collect the exercise discussed on that page, but the study questions will help you make your way through this complex text) and the full text of Self-Reliance (about 18 pages when printed out)

Thoreau: (biography). Start with Civil Disobedience(about 15 pages when printed out), then read a short paper (4 printed pages) on the history of the critical reaction to Thoreau's essay: "Transcendental Legacy: Political Reform". (The short paper calls Thoreau's essay by its original title, "Resistance to Civil Government.")