超验主义和爱默生,梭罗.ppt

TRANSCENDENTALISM 超验主义
appeared in 1830s, the summit of American romanticism.
Origin: derived from the Latin verb trard College
Calvinist – Unitarian minister– Resigned his post and traveled in Europe – formed the Transcendentalists’ club
Became the most eloquent spokesman of transcendentalism
From 1834, launched himself as a public speaker
Major works
Emerson’s writing falls into 2 types: essays and poetry
Nature
Self –Reliance
The American Scholar
The Divinity School Adress
Nature
An introduction plus 8 brief chapters, discussing the love of nature, the uses of nature, the idealist philosophy in relation to nature, evidence of spirit in a material universe
Self-Reliance
2. Three major points:
“Trust thyself” and “Insist on yourself; never imitate.”
Teach people not to be a conformist
The terror that scares people from self-trust is consistency
The American Scholar
Had been called “America’s Declaration of Intellectual Independence”
Literary Nationalism
From Self-reliance
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried…
The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give