Human and American Scholar Essay

Transcendentalism in America The transcendentalist move manpowert chance upon America full force by the mid 19th century, crafting a passionate phantasmal idealism in its wake and leaving a unique mark on the history of Ameri target literature. Transcendentalism stems from the broader romantic time block, which depends on intuition instead than reasoning. Transcendentalism takes a shade nurture into the realm of spirituality with the principle that in order to realise the prognosticate truth that the private seeks, he or she must transcend, or exceed, the anyday mankind experience in the physical world (Elements of writings Fifth Course 146). personality, the physical world, is seen as a doorway to the divine world macrocosms rotter cross over into this divine world by not only observing personality, exactly also looking indoors themselves. As a result, unmarriedity and self-assurance ar seen as virtues, since they come along from the he wile of the individual. William Cullen Bryant and his poem Thanatopsis, Ralph Waldo Emersons The American pupil, and Walt Whitmans A quiet Patient roamer solely display fundamental characteristics of Transcendentalism.William Cullen Bryant was a kn birth American poet of the 1800s, integrating major ascendants of transcendentalism into his poems and short stories. Thanatopsis is maven of Bryants most famous works, and combines the themes of temperament, death, and the unity of these two with humanity. He starts by personifying disposition, and claims he has a unique relationship with her and all her antithetical forms, referring to sights that adorn the landscape. Valleys, brooks, and full treatment flavour are all her different forms.Bryant explains that nature speaks differently to an individual according to their mood Communion with her visible forms, she speaks/A various terminology for his gayer hours/She has a juncture of gladness, and a smile (2-4). When that individuals pose changes, so does natures character and she glides/Into his darker musings, with a mild/And heal sympathy, that steals away/Their sharpness, ere he is aware. (5-8). genius frontingly heals the individuals incommode before they are conscious of it. Bryant then transfers to the melancholy thoughts of death.He states that when we die, we leave behind become one with nature. He describes all the ways the earth give reuse us in the soil, for the trees, and we will become as achromatic as rocks that scatter ab break the world. Therefore, we should not feel disheartened towards death. He continues to persuade the reader not to worry, for everyone will one day live overpower in one mighty sepulcher (37) together. He ends on the note that we should not greet death with hopelessness, as if entering a prison, but embrace it as if it were just an opportunity to lie d declare and sleep dreamily.Transcendentalism is a sector of romanticism, and therefore, manage romanticism, can be said to enco mpass the philosophy of reverence for nature (Benets refs Encyclopedia). Many transcendentalist believers took to nature to gain dream and descend into a state of divinity. Wildlife was machine-accessible to God, and by embracing the wild you embraced spirituality itself. alimentation in an untamed environment and functioning in the works of nature was the essence of transcendentalism.Bryant perceives the personified Nature as a celestial being that takes numerous another(prenominal) forms in the world, and he calls kayoed to those who see her similarly. In his beginning parentage he addresses To him who in the love of Nature holds/ Communion with her visible forms(1-2). He is calling out to those who hold a special relationship with Natures various spectacles. He continues to admire natures wisdom, goading readers to Go forth, under the open sky, and list/To Natures teachings, geological period from all around/ Earth and her waters, and the depths of air/Comes a still vo ice (14-17).One author notes Thanatopsis then exhorts anyone overcome with morbid thoughts of human deathrate to venture into Nature for the sake of uplifting lessons to be derived from the elements of air, earth, and water that typify the universe (Curley). Another characteristic of the transcendental literary time period is human mortality rate, and this is the main concern in Thanatopsis, which literally translates into a supposition on death. As one critic puts it, Thanatopsis grants consolation for human mortality through with(predicate) mankinds unity with nature (Curley).Death, no matter what time period it is observed in, can be daunting to an individual. Since death is a part of nature, transcendentalism embraces it as a rung of life. Thanatopsis is intertwined with the perspective of nature, it is Natures lessons that ease the fear of death Nature then begins to speak, and does so for the remainder of the poem, directly addressing the person oppressed by human morta lity with a reminder that while the physical structure will dissolve in the grave, ones identity will be lost in its commingling with the elements. (Price).Many transcendentalists like this idea of the human body becoming one with nature, giving back to the place from where it originated, such as in Bryants words Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim/Thy growth, to be inflexible to earth again/And, lost each human trace, surrendering up/Thine individual being, shalt thou go(22-25). The main reason transcendentalists do not apprehension mortality is the solace that the body will dissolve in the grave, ones identity will be lost in its commingling with the elements (Curley). Additionally, Bryant offered further explanations as to why death should be accepted, rather than fled from.Humanity itself is not permanent, and no man has ever been immortal Bryant amplifies this truth All that remain/Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh/When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care/P lod on, and each one as before will chase/His favorite phantom yet all these shall leave (60-64). To this, one critic comments an individuals death merges with the mortality of the entire human race anywhere in time, anywhere in place, and therefore, merely fulfills the universal human destinyThe living may be care poverty-stricken or sad, but in the end they share the analogous mortal fate (Curley).Ralph Waldo Emerson also exemplified various themes of transcendentalism in his work. Emersons The American Scholar encourages individualism, nonconformity, originality, and reliance on the inner spirit. He discusses different sources that the human mind should rely on, such as nature, literature, and feat. He embraces an intellect of oneself. Emerson criticizes those who focus too much on the great minds of the past, rather than being inspired by them, and dont actually think for themselves.He explains that work leaves an individual empty, almost becoming a simple machine, like the g rowing factories in America. Emerson directs this speech at a particular final payment Americas influence from European literature. This came to bother Emerson, who believed in inspiration from oneself. The individual is so special. This speech directly targets Americas unusual identity during this time, which he wishes to establish by inspiring each and every American scholar.An important aspect of transcendentalism in The American Scholar was individualism and self- self-assertion If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him (The American Scholar). Individualism is what spins the planet of creativity to Emerson, without it human beings would not be able-bodied to achieve their full potential. In order for a person to free their individuality, they would acquit to first disengage from society itself. Emerson believes that society limits an individuals capacity.One critic notes that Emerson sees the American scholar as a renewal project, where one must have an idealized portrait of intellectual life rooted in the liberated humanity of the individual thinker. In entrust this means an outright rejection of conformity and groupthink, including the uncritical acceptance of established creeds and dogmas (Yang). before the transcendentalism period hit America, industrialization had taken a price on the American people work was the central focus, and it left many tired and empty.Emerson observed, Equated with their occupational function, people become tool-like, with a corresponding loving arrangement that reinforces this state of affairs. He views this deformation as inherent in the mercantile and manufacturing culture then emerging in the United States. This favorable fragmentation not only inhibits human potential its soul-destroying consequences are dehumanizing (Matuozzi). Another more obscure issue that Emerson dealt with was Americas angle of dip to hang on to past great writers and philosophers, rather than coming to revelations with their own minds.As Emerson put it, Books are written on it the world by thinkers, not by Man Thinking, by men of talent, that is, who start wrong, who set out from accepted dogmas, not from their own sight of principles. Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given forgetful that Cicero, Locke and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books (The American Scholar).One critic explains this quote Emerson criticizes those scholars who allow themselves to be dominated by the past great minds to the extent that they think for the historical figures rather than for themselves, thereby becoming bookworms instead of Man Thinking (Yang). While looking to historical figures is oftentimes needed to understand what a person needs to do in their life, it does more harm than good to sculpt yourself into that exact person. It is conf idence in oneself that is needed for transcendentalist philosophy to prevail. A central theme in The American Scholar is striving for wholeness. Since this private aspiration is linked with an laissez-faire(a) ethic and often clashes with social norms and public institutions, Emersons project would seem to require a powerful will the harmonization of will, intellect, and soul is difficult, peradventure the chief impediment to the full realization of self-reliance and self-trustIn the end, Emersons espousal of self-reliant individualism in The American Scholar is an regular rejection of whatever blunts creative human potential.Wherever circumstances threaten the quantify of autonomy, the outspoken message of The American Scholar will offer encouragement, proving a clear alternative to debilitating conformity and spiritual alienation. (Matuozzi) Emerson also expands on the idea of action. Without it, transcendentalism would be nothing but talk of reformation. It would do no good to anyone in the world. Transcendentalist ideas were based on constantly living, rather than constantly contemplating. Emerson sees that action is relevant to human potential. The scholar immerses him- or herself in the world rather than fleeing it. The world is an occasion to gain valuable noesis through focused, mindful participation. (Matuozzi). The critic is directly stemming from a statement do in The American Scholar by Emerson Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it he is not yet man. Without it thought can neer age into truth. Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot take down see its beauty. Inaction is cowardice, but there can be no scholar without the heroic mind. (The American Scholar). A Noiseless Patient rover by Walt Whitman has a key trait of the characteristics of transcendentalism as well. The first stanza of the poem starts out by describing one isolated roamer. Whitman describes the actions of t his spider, as it flings its filaments, or silk webs, into the air. The arachnid is doing this in the hope of latching on to some sort of solid, abiding surface. This would ensure it an easy groundwork for setting up the rest of its web. The percipient in the poem remarks that he can see this spider as it repeats this tedious task over and over again.In the second stanza, Whitman changes perspectives, instead focused on a human mortal. In the first stanza, the poet maxim the desolate world the spider resided in. I markd where on a little promontory it stood isolated/Markd how to explore the indolent vast surrounding (2-3). In the second stanza, the poet takes this lone spider and turns the creature into a metaphorical form of the human soul. He describes how his own soul is Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them (8).Just like the spider, indistinct of its future, the human soul also wanders about aimlessly, hoping to grasp something stable that it can cling to. It is just as lonesome. This literary piece adds to the transcendental theme of the unknown. Oftentimes, people find themselves drifting along in life, not conditioned where they are headed. A miniscule spider, attempting to chart a boundless vacancy with grossly inadequate equipment, becomes a living symbol of the pathetic pledge of human mortality. The human soul, too, must deal with the unknown. (Scherle). We search for a purpose, a meaning in our lives that will stabilize us. The experience of the spider becomes a metaphor symbolizing the souls quest for the unification of mundane and heavenly existencethe person visualizes in the spiders action a reflection of the pathetic yet heroic struggle he is waging to find immortality. (Scherle). Without purpose, a person can stray from a ruin path transcendentalists found comfort in knowing that the unknown is connected with some mystical higher being.As one critic notes, The reason of human insignificance is monstrous (Scherle). Along those lines, Whitman shows that finding that sole purpose can be a long and tiresome task. Oftentimes it is repetitive and dismal, and the outlet is unspecified. Everything (immortality) is hanging on a silken thread, which is being tossed tentatively and figuratively into an unidentified, undefined somewhere (Scherle). Whitman sees his soul in Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of dummy just as the spider stood isolated in a vacant vast surrounding (2-7).What the critic realizes is that A Noiseless Patient roamer is a poem about lonelinessthis is a loneliness that grows out of an inherent tendency of the body and soul to attempt to unite with an subtle divine entity in order to gain immortality (Scherle). Whitman uses the transcendental concept of nature as a wayseer for human truth (Scherle). Transcendentalism is portrayed through the literary works of William Cullen Bryant and Thanatopsis, Ralph Waldo Emerson and The American Scholar, an d Walt Whitman and A Noiseless Patient Spider. Thanatopsis exemplifies themes of nature and death.Transcendentalists immersed themselves in the natural world to connect with the divine otherworld. The American Scholar argued that in order to transcend the human body into a spiritual realm, you must first disengage from society. A Noiseless Patient Spider explains the isolation and uncertainty we have throughout our lives. We search for purpose and reason, never knowing what to expect. Transcendentalism was a unique literary time period in America that consisted of a love for nature, the divine, and the individual human mind. flora Cited Page * Romanticism. HarperCollins Benets Readers Encyclopedia. 1996). ebscohost. Web. 18 Mar 2013. * Price, Victoria. Thanatopsis, Poems. capital of Oregon take Masterplots. (2010). ebscohost. Database. 18 Mar 2013. * Curley, Thomas M. Thanatopsis, Poems. Salem Press Masterplots II. (2010). ebscohost. Database. 18 Mar 2013. * Scherle, Phillis J. A Noiseless Patient Spider, Leaves of Grass. Salem Press Masterplots II (2002). ebscohost. Database. 18 Mar 2013. * Matuozzi, Robert N. A Noiseless Patient Spider, Leaves of Grass. Salem Press Masterplots (2010). ebscohost. Database. 18 Mar 2013. * Yang, Vincent. The American Scholar. Salem Press Magills