05- Transcendentalism.ppt

Lecture 5 Lecture 5 American Transcendentalism New England Transcendentalism 1. It is the summit of Am. Romanticism. 2. Leaders: Emerson and Thoreau 3. Manifesto: Nature written by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1836, which is regarded as the Bible of New England Transcendentalism. 4. Club: Transcendentalist Club 5. Journal: The Dial Significance: 1. Exhorting young people to cast off their deadening enslavement to the past, to follow God within, and to live every moment of life with strenuousness, to regard nature as the great objective lesson proving God’s presence everywhere in His creation. 2. An ethical guide to life for a young nation of America 3. The positive life and appealed to the best side of human nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson Born in in Boston, the son of a Unitarian minister. In Harvard, studied theology, and became a Unitarian minister in 1829. Resigned from his post for reasons of conscience in 1832. While in Europe, he met Wordsworth and Coleridge; then he settled down in Concord, and became the leading member of the Transcendental club. Emerson’s Major Works 1836 Nature (“The Bible of Transcendentalism” and “ The Manifesto of American Transcendentalism”) 1837 The American Scholar 1841 Essays “Self-reliance” 1844 Essays: Second Series 1849 Representative Men 1860 The conduct of Life Nature in 1836: an anonymously published; 95 pages of mixture of treatise, lyricism and manifest; “Bible” of New England Transcendentalism. The universe is composed of Nature and Soul. Its style is casual. The American Scholar 《论美国学者》in 1837: address given at Harvard University – Nature and Instinct are the best teachers who are not book and lessoning. This address is “our intellectual Declaration of Independence”. The Divinity School Address 《神学院献词》in 1838: anyone can communicate with God; man is pact of God; know God by intuition not by religious teaching. Emerson’s Stylistic Features 1. Epigrammatic in expression of ideas 2. Rich in comparison, especia