Transcendentalism in Literature

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Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle. In fact, most of the Transcendentalists were not interested in the strictly philosophical sense of the term, and they only borrowed

“forms and phrases of German thought” (Carpenter 26) instead of seeing themselves as official disciples of German Idealism.

The New England Transcendentalists used the term Transcendental in a flexible way, connoting various other terms including “innate, original, universal, a priori, [and] intuitive” (Goddard 3). In their lifetimes, Transcendentalism was considered 1)

“a way of perceiving the world, centered on individual consciousness rather than on external fact” (Gura 8) and 2) “a doctrine concerning the mind, [about] its ways of acting and methods of getting knowledge” (Goddard 4). The Transcendentalists built their philosophy on the basis of these notions about consciousness and the mind. In short, New England Transcendentalism’s elastic links with German Idealism concern the term transcendental and a shared emphasis on the mental world; in a strictly theoretical sense, however, Transcendentalism deviated from its German antecedent.

3.2.3 Transcendentalism in Literature

In literature, Transcendentalism has been viewed as part of the broader Romantic Movement (Koster 8). Starting in Europe, Romanticism was a “reaction against the materialism and ordinariness of modern life, particularly the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment” (Habich and Nowatzki 69). Habich and Nowatzki associate the promotion of individualism, the celebration of nature, and opposition to reason, logic, and empirical observation with Romanticism, and they assert that these beliefs and doubts share features with those of Transcendentalism (69). To many critics,

Transcendentalism was “the American tributary of European Romanticism” (Koster 2). However, the New England Transcendentalists regarded British authors as more essential mentors to them than authors from continental Europe.

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3.2.3.1 Root: British Romantic Literature

Among British Romantic authors, Coleridge and Carlyle had the most significant influence on New England Transcendentalism. The distinction Coleridge drew

between Reason and Understanding offered a solution to the spiritual dilemma the Unitarian-Transcendentalist writers confronted. Coleridge sees Reason as a

supersensuous and intuitive power, the source of morality and the highest levels of intellection; meanwhile, in his view, Understanding is the humbler servant that works by combining and comparing ideas derived from sensation and helps people reflect and generalize – equivalent to Science or Knowledge (Packer 24; Koster 10).

According to Packer, many of the Unitarian-Transcendentalists wanted to

simultaneously maintain the “values of tolerance and rational inquiry” (24) and the

“hunger for contact with the transcendent” (25); the potential conflicts between these two impulses bothered them. However, embracing Coleridge’s notion that Reason and Understanding are compatible intellectual functions enabled them to continue their quest for physical and spiritual truth.

Carlyle’s significance stems from his translations of German thought, a composition of Carlylean philosophy, and the encouragement he gave academics.

First, as a translator, Carlyle’s translations of Goethe and essays about German Romantic Idealism provided “tremendous stimulus to American Transcendentalism”

(Koster 10). Second, as an author, Carlyle accentuates the ideas of self-culture (Packer 35), wonder in nature (Koster 10), and “the everlasting NOW” (Koster 10), which resonated with the New England Transcendentalists, especially Emerson, who articulates a similar view in Nature. Finally, as a mentor, Carlyle encouraged men of letters to fulfill their duty: “Literary Men are the appointed interpreters of [the] Divine Idea (the intuitive wisdom)” (Packer 35). Packer claims that Carlyle identified writers’

revelation of “their own spiritual struggle” (35) as their most important acts; she

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highlights Carlyle’s belief that the best way for literary men to contribute to their communities was by “simply recording faithfully what they thought and felt” (Packer 35). Packer asserts that this notion “kindled all honest hearts” (35) of the New

England Transcendentalists, who mostly remained productive writers and loyal interpreters of the divine during their lives.

3.2.3.2 Fruit: Transcendentalist Prose and the American Literary Renaissance The Transcendentalists typically wrote prose and they published in periodicals;

the prodigious rigor of their work eventually led their age to be called the American Literary Renaissance. The Transcendentalists were good at prose, and their various prose styles enriched the American literary world. According to Packer, Clarke’s generous enthusiasm, Brownson’s fierce logic, Fuller’s feminist scorn, Parker’s indignation, Thoreau’s precision, Emerson’s oracular pronouncements, and Alcott’s vaporous apothegms, all helped develop American prose from the didactic Unitarian style of the 1820s and 1830s to a “sharper, tougher, more powerful” (Packer 128) one.

They “polished [the language] for use and kept it ready to hand” (Packer 128).

These great works of American prose were mostly published in periodicals.

Periodicals not only served as platforms for authors, editors, and readers⁵ but also witnessed the peak years of the Transcendental Movement. Packer comments:

The nearly ten years spanned by the main Transcendentalist periodicals – the Western Messenger (1835-41), the Boston Quarterly Review (1838-44), and The Dial (1841-4) – were the formative and maturing years of the movement itself. (Packer 128)

5 To beginning authors like Thoreau, magazines offered the pleasure of seeing works quickly in print and the opportunity to experiment with forms and ideas. To editors and major contributors, periodicals afforded the stimulus of deadlines, the excitement of working with the like-minded, and the sense of what the profession of letters was like. To New Englander readers, the periodicals provided a forum for the free expression of ideas. (Packer 95, 128)

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Due to their literary enthusiasm, the Transcendentalists published and contributed to various periodicals.⁶ The most renowned was The Dial, which featured papers on theology, philosophy, art, music, and literature (Goddard 37, 196) and, for many, came to epitomize the Transcendentalist literary achievement (Habich and Nowatzki 90;

Koster 25; Packer 128). The Transcendentalists’ literary fertility and experimentation made their era “one of the most productive” (Smith 3) in American literary history.

Emerson had completed and published Essays and Thoreau had begun work on Walden. In 1941, F. O. Matthiessen famously defined this period as an American Literary Renaissance and, although the term came to be used more broadly, Emerson and the Transcendentalists remain paradigmatic of the entire period.