聊城大学外国语学院美国文学史与选读课件 Lecture10.ppt

Transcendentalism Historical Background independence Political Economic Cultural Source of Transcendentalism American Puritanism German Spiritualism of Kant Jean Jacques Rousseau’s theory Oriental mysticism, especially Hinduism Transcendentalism A philosophy existent between 1830s and 1860s, especially around Concord near Harvard University in Massachusetts in New England Transcendental Club at Boston, Massachusetts with their magazine The Dial Transcendentalism Tenet of Transcendentalism Revolting against Calvinism and its principles of original sin, predestination, strict church control, biblical guidance of human activities Belief in a kind God whose kindness is embodied in nature as God’s symbol and incarnation Belief in the divinity and therefore the goodness of human soul; belief in the unity of man and nature Transcendentalism Revolting against Monotheism and its rationality principle Man’s intuition reflecting his divinity and God’s gospel Man’s judgment depending on his intuition Worship of independent thinking, confidence and self-reliance to deny knowledge and authority worshiped in the past Transcendentalism Similar to Romanticism in terms of its idealization of life, love of nature and hatred of industry Transcendentalism Representative including Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, with Emerson being the center Representative transcedentalist works including Emerson’s Nature (1836) and Thoreau’s Walden (1854) Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson deeply influenced by it Realism The Civil War The conflict between the southern slave holders and the northern capitalists voicing the abolition of slavery Emerson and Thoreau attacking slavery Black abolitionist like Frederick Douglass Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin Stephen Crane and The Red Badge of Courage Walt Whitman and Drum-Taps Realism Industrial development after the Civil War Steel, mining, military business Agricultural machinery Transportation (car, train,