American Transcendentalism

[Treeshepherd]

The romantic poets of Europe sprung from the Enlightenment and really stirred the drink (religion and philosophy of the time). They took the Greek Classics and traditional Biblical themes and made them fresh.
You could say the same thing about the American Transcendentalists (ie Thoreau, Emerson, Fuller, Whitman. Melville?). What made them distinctly American was their individualism and a piqued imagination sparked by a vast Western wilderness. The conforming pressure of society was an obstacle to be transcended in order to discover the true unique self. The West was the new Eden where nature abided in its virgin state.

Do you have any favorite works or authors from the America Transcendental movement?

 

[Unkotare]

... a piqued imagination sparked by a vast Western wilderness......

Huh?????????

They were from the East Coast, not the "vast Western wilderness..."

 

[Treeshepherd]

... a piqued imagination sparked by a vast Western wilderness......

Huh?????????

They were from the East Coast, not the "vast Western wilderness..."

Emerson didn't range far from Massachusetts. But the Lewis and Clark expedition had crossed the continent. The wilderness had become a fascination of the American psyche. Emerson captured that in his writings.

Nature, 1836
"In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God."

 

[Unkotare]

... a piqued imagination sparked by a vast Western wilderness......

Huh?????????

They were from the East Coast, not the "vast Western wilderness..."

Emerson didn't range far from Massachusetts. But the Lewis and Clark expedition had crossed the continent. The wilderness had become a fascination of the American psyche. Emerson captured that in his writings.

Nature, 1836
"In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and parcel of God."

Lewis and Clark were not transcendentalists, and Emerson had plenty of woods (where the hell do you think Thoreau did his cabin thing?) in New England to be inspired by.

 

[Treeshepherd]

Lewis and Clark were not transcendentalists, and Emerson had plenty of woods (where the hell do you think Thoreau did his cabin thing?) in New England to be inspired by.

No, Lewis and Clark were obviously not Transcendentalists. As I said, they explored the continent and brought it into American consciousness. Later the Transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau saw nature as integral to self-discovery. And part of our self-discovery as a nation had to do with western expansion.

 

[Unkotare]

Lewis and Clark were not transcendentalists, and Emerson had plenty of woods (where the hell do you think Thoreau did his cabin thing?) in New England to be inspired by.

No, Lewis and Clark were obviously not Transcendentalists. As I said, they explored the continent and brought it into American consciousness. Later the Transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau saw nature as integral to self-discovery. And part of our self-discovery as a nation had to do with western expansion.

You're trying too hard to fit the square peg into the round hole.

 

[Treeshepherd]

I think Emerson spent most of his time lecturing at Harvard rather than backpacking in the wilds. But he was a gifted writer and his writings called for a more original relationship with the universe.

“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?"

 

[Treeshepherd]

You're trying too hard to fit the square peg into the round hole.

You seem to be more interested in having a geography discussion

 

[Unkotare]

I think Emerson spent most of his time lecturing at Harvard rather than backpacking in the wilds. ....

In Newton and Concord today you don't have to walk far to get to some woods. Back in Emerson's day, This was even much more the case.

 

[Treeshepherd]

I think Emerson spent most of his time lecturing at Harvard rather than backpacking in the wilds. ....

In Newton and Concord today you don't have to walk far to get to some woods. Back in Emerson's day, This was even much more the case.

Well I never claimed that Emerson or Thoreau adventured to Oregon. I'm saying that they were fascinated by nature, and that they lived to the east of millions of acres of semi-discovered virgin land, and reports of new discoveries about this land were arriving at places like Harvard, and this sparked their imagination.

Do you have anything philosophical to say about the Transcendentalists?

 

[Unkotare]

I think Emerson spent most of his time lecturing at Harvard rather than backpacking in the wilds. ....

In Newton and Concord today you don't have to walk far to get to some woods. Back in Emerson's day, This was even much more the case.

Well I never claimed that Emerson or Thoreau adventured to Oregon. I'm saying that they were fascinated by nature, and that they lived to the east of millions of acres of semi-discovered virgin land, and reports of new discoveries about this land were arriving at places like Harvard, and this sparked their imagination.....

Where is your documentation that either one was inspired by Western exploration rather than the nature around them right where they were?

 

[Treeshepherd]

Where is your documentation that either one was inspired by Western exploration rather than the nature around them right where they were?

Are u from the Concord board of tourism or something?

New England Transcendentalism flowered during a period in American history marked by expansion, change, a growing national self-awareness, and increasing political, social, and regional polarization. The 1830 United States Census recorded a population of 12,866,020. By the 1860 Census, the population had more than doubled, to 31,443,321. The years from 1830 to 1860 witnessed the exploration and annexation of much new territory, westward migration...

Introduction to the Times

In many ways the Lewis and Clark expedition was the American Odyssey, certainly during the first half of the 19th century. It was a great story, and also a great boon for science, which is another point; the American Transcendentalists were promoters of scientific discovery.

 

[Unkotare]

I think Emerson spent most of his time lecturing at Harvard rather than backpacking in the wilds. ....

In Newton and Concord today you don't have to walk far to get to some woods. Back in Emerson's day, This was even much more the case.

Well I never claimed that Emerson or Thoreau adventured to Oregon. I'm saying that they were fascinated by nature, and that they lived to the east of millions of acres of semi-discovered virgin land, and reports of new discoveries about this land were arriving at places like Harvard, and this sparked their imagination.....

Where is your documentation that either one was inspired by Western exploration rather than the nature around them right where they were?

Well?

 

[Treeshepherd]

Well?

Asked and answered in my last post.

The Transcendentalists concerned themselves with nature. Their geographic context was situated to the east of a couple million square miles of wilderness. It was a context they were aware of and a reality that contributed to the milieu of the times.

 

[Treeshepherd]

This quote by John Muir is a good example of the Unitarian influence on Transcendentalism;
"We all flow from one fountain— Soul. All are expressions of one love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all."

 

[Unkotare]

Well?

Asked and answered in my last post.

The Transcendentalists concerned themselves with nature. Their geographic context was situated to the east of a couple million square miles of wilderness. It was a context they were aware of and a reality that contributed to the milieu of the times.

I asked for documentation. Maybe some personal writing from Emerson, Thoreau, et al referring to their inspiration by westward expansion?

 

[Treeshepherd]

Excerpt from Walt Whitman's Pioneers! O pioneers

We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!