超验主义文学英文版介绍.ppt

“Don’t mistake the march of commerce for progress and civilization?– especially when that commerce amounts to driving slaves to produce the articles of vice like alcohol and tobacco. There’s no shortage of gold, of tobacco, of alcohol, but there is a short supply of ‘a high and earnest purpose’.” 18th-century rationalism; the skeptical philosophy of Locke (sensationalism, or empiricism); and the confining religious orthodoxy of New England Calvinism; Unitarianism English Romanticism French writers Idealist philosophy from Germany Oriental mysticism as revealed in Hindu and Chinese classics Spirit first, matter second; Spirit is everywhere. Belief in the power of intuition: man can transcend the limits of the senses and of logic and directly receive higher truths and greater knowledge denied to more mundane methods of knowing Religion as an emotional communication between an individual soul and the universal “oversoul”; An ethical guide and a clarion call（感人的号召） to action Inspired English poets and German idealist philosophers New Thought Movement Great impact on American writers Inspired one of America’s most prolific literary periods in its history Never a systematic philosophy Rampant individualism rather than a democracy of mutual helpfulness Denial of the reality of evil Denial of its real spiritual origin Part III The Literature of Romanticism Transcendentalism C.1830s-1850s Nature (1836) as manifesto The summit of American romanticism and the first renaissance in the American literary history The term was derived from the Latin verb transcendere: to rise above , to pass beyond the limits Historical Introduction (Rise of Transcendentalism) A protest against the general state of culture and society The product of combination of foreign influence and American native Puritan tradition Romantic idealism, Philosophical romanticism 1. Spirit or Oversoul 2. Individualism the most important element in society the divinity of individual