New England Transcendentalism1830-1860: New England Transcendentalism 1830-1860 Dr. M. Patterson


Context: Context A response to the Industrial Revolution in New England in the 1830’s and 1840’s Transcendentalists feared that increasing production in factories meant a decreasing sense of self—hence emphasis on nature. Met in Concord and nearby Boston Owed its development to the growth of democracy. T. centered on the divinity of the individual, but this divinity could be self-discovered only if the person had the independence of mind to do so. (At least 70% of registered voters participated in presidential elections.) They were active in the major reform movements of their day: advocating abolition and women’s rights; improvements in education and conditions for the poor, insane and criminal.


Origins: Origins Emerson traces its origins to Immanuel Kant, who showed that there were experiences that could be acquired through “intuitions of the mind.” In his essay, “Nature,” Emerson explained how every idea has its source in natural phenomena, and that the attentive person can ‘see’ those ideas in nature.” Intuition allowed the transcendentalist to disregard external authority and to rely, instead, on direct experience. “God is energy, a force, not a separate being. God breathes through nature and man attempts to open himself up to this influx “The oriental mind has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. . .The Buddhist. . .is a Transcendentalist”--Emerson


Religious Foundations: Religious Foundations T’s offered a critique of Unitarianism. The religion from which many of the T’s came, U. offered a rational or liberal theology stressing self culture and the human capacity for good. Unitarians, in turn, had offered a rationalist critique of Calvinist orthodoxy, rejecting such Puritan beliefs as 1. Innate depravity 2. Predestination—God had decreed who would be saved and who would be damned from the beginning of the world 3. Irresistible grace—regeneration was entirely a work of God, which can’t be resisted and which the sinner contributes nothing 4.limited atonement—Christ died for the elect only 5. Perseverance of the Saints. (Despite their backsliding, the elect cannot fall from grace)


Who were they?: Who were they? Ralph Waldo Emerson was the “spokesman of Transcendentalism” Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden Margaret Fuller Walt Whitman (influenced)


Some Definitions of Transcendentalism: Some Definitions of Transcendentalism An intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual movement. “It was a renaissance of conscious, living faith in the power of reason, in the reality of spiritual insight, in the privilege, beauty, and glory of life”—Frances Tiffany “The transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy. He wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to the state of man, without the admission of anything unspiritual”—Ralph Waldo Emerson “an assertion of the inalienable worth of man…of the immanence of divinity in instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to the natural constitution of mankind”—O. B. Frothingham


Key Terms: Key Terms Oversoul—The source of all creation, divine perfection Unitarianism Transcendentalism Calvinism