#08-247: The New England Transcendentalists

Emerson - Thoreau - Alcott
(Wikipedia)

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Note: Transcendentalism was one of the first uniquely American philosophies, and has had a widespread effect.

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Get Ready: Is it possible for a modern religion to give nature a central place?

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The philosophical movement called Transcendentalism arose in the early 19th-century from the Unitarian movement that centered around Harvard University. Unitarians rejected some of the traditional teachings of Christianity, especially the Trinity: they did not believe that God was "Three-in-One," but simply One, or Unitary.

Influenced by Hinduism and other Eastern ideas, Transcendentalists believed that people were inherently good (not sinful, as traditional Christianity taught); that individuals could become self-reliant and rise above the corrupting influence of institutions; and that the everyday world we live in could be a source of divine experience, without waiting for a distant life in heaven. In this way the individual can "transcend" old, restrictive ways of thinking.

Some of the best-known writers of the day were Transcendentalists; three of them were neighbors in Concord, Massachusetts, a small town just outside of Boston.

Foremost among them was Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Harvard-educated minister, who, after resigning from the pulpit, became a renowned essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet.

Just the names of his essays can tell us something about Transcendentalism: "Self-Reliance," "Love," "Friendship," "Heroism," "The Over-Soul" (heavily influenced by Hinduism), "Experience," "Character," and "Nature" (in which the Transcendentalists perceived the divine).

Emerson sometimes hired his neighbor Henry David Thoreau as a handyman. It was on the shores of a small lake owned by Emerson that Thoreau wrote his most famous work, Walden; or, Life in the Woods. In it he extolled the virtues of nature, simplicity, the need for spiritual awakening, and self-reliance--all Transcendental values.

Not so well-known today is another Transcendentalist neighbor, Amos Bronson Alcott, a reforming educator and vegetarian who advocated for women's rights. Among those women, though, was his daughter, also a Transcendentalist, of whom you've surely heard: Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women and other books for young people, which also embody the spirit of independence and the nurturing of character so important to the movement.

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• Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism
• Read a selection of Emerson's Essays FREE online

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Practice: Match the term to its definition below:

1. advocated (for)
2. awakening
3. divine
4. extolled
5. handyman
6. Hinduism
7. inherently
8. pulpit
9. resigning
10. virtues

1. the place from which a preacher preaches
2. supported; campaigned (for)
3. a person who fixes things around the house
4. positive qualities
5. becoming aware of
6. the main religion of India
7. praised
8. quitting
9. holy; of God
10. by nature; necessarily

Answers are in the first comment below.

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Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for Oct 14, 2022