TRANSCENDENTALISM

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

TRANSCENDENTALISM

AN INTRODUCTION

When something 'transcends' something else, what does it do?

Can you change who you are? Or is the concept of 'you' unchangeable?

Are you who you are? Or are you still becoming who you think you will be?

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Transcedentalism

is a very formal word  that describes a very simple idea. 

People, men and women equally, have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that "transcends" or goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel.

Why would people in the early 19th century want to move away from rationalism and toward nature?

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." 

- Henry David Thoreau

Transcendentalism (1820s-1850s)

- Five 'pillars': nonconformity, self-reliance, free thought, confidence, and the importance of nature. 

- The 'Over-Soul': everyone is eternally connected 

with every other living thing in the universe.

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

William Blake, 

"Frankenstein", 

"Dracula", 

a.m.o.

Let's have a look

at one of the 

transcendentalist

greats:

Emily Dickinson 

“Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.”

- Emily Dickinson

01:18

Based on this stanza, is Dickinson more of a fan
of microscopes
than of faith?

03:08

Can the 'American Dream', where you're in control of your own life and destiny, be combined with being very religious and believing God is the one pulling the strings?

03:36

Which big event in American history happened during those years of peak poem production?

06:03

Flies buzz, a person is dying and 'the King' is 'witnessed in the room'. Who might 'the King' be?

"I felt my life with 

both my hands" 

- Emily Dickinson, 1861

I felt my life with both my hands
To see if it was there –

What does she mean with 'to see if it was there'?

I held my spirit to the Glass,
To prove it possibler –

'Glass' means mirror here.
What is she trying to prove?

I turned my Being round and round
And paused at every pound
To ask the Owner's name —
For doubt, that I should know the Sound —

She's uncertain if she knows the name of the owner of her 'Being'.
Who might it be?

I judged my features — jarred my hair —
I pushed my dimples by, and waited —
If they — twinkled back —
Conviction might, of me —

What is she inspecting here?

I told myself, "Take Courage, Friend —
That — was a former time —
But we might learn to like the Heaven,
As well as our Old Home!"

What's 'our Old Home'? And what does 'Heaven' point toward?

Is this a poem about fear of aging and death, or about acceptance of those things?

Which transcendental qualities and characteristics did this poem have?