美国文学Lecture 4.pptVIP

Lecture 4  New England Transcendentalism Emerson Thoreau Transcendentalism a philosophic and literary movement that flourished in New England, particularly at Concord (c. 1836-1860), as a reaction against: 18th-century rationalism, the skeptical philosophy of Locke The confining religious orthodoxy of New England Calvinism (P 57) Transcendentalism romantic, idealistic, mystical, and individualistic belief eclectic Major features Emphasis on spirit The importance of individual Nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God The product of combination of Foreign influence: German idealism (Carlyle, Wordsworth, Coleridge) French eclecticism Platonic doctrines Oriental mysticism American Puritan tradition: Edwardian notion of inward communication of the soul with God Benjamin Franklin’s notion of self-reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) “Nature (1836) Self-Reliance The Over-Soul (First Series) The American Scholar Ralph Waldo Emerson influences: Thoreau Whitman Emily Dickinson Melville Robert Frost Wallace Stevens Emerson’s Transcendentalist folly: Unqualified acceptance of life Cheerful optimism Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience (1849) Walden (1854) Reading Walden on more than one level Self-culture and human perfectibility Criticism of modern civilization Mockery of people’s smug complacency * *