The Transcendentalists -- a few essential snippets of information

Doctrine:

Truth changes, or at least waits to be discovered as our understanding grows; therefore, the doctrine is itself not hard-and-fast. However, the general notion is that the human mind is not a blank slate, but begins with divinely-imbued structure, including an ability to (if cultivated) discern and even share in the Divine. Some considered the human soul part of the Oversoul or an element of God. [Hu]man[s] discover Truth or the Divine through the various means of intellectual study: observation of Nature, books, action (work!) and contemplation. Many of the "truths" thereby discovered varied widely from individual Transcendentalist to individual Transcendentalist (which was rather to be expected).

The persons associated with the movement were New Englanders, many of them clergy, and most involved in a doctrinal split in the Unitarian Church. Many of them labored to combine intellectual activity (the abstract) with practical action. Even the adherents least given to day-to-day concerns (Emerson, Thoreau) were moved to action by social injustice (both were Abolitionists, Thoreau quite actively such).

Philosophical antecedents:

• Immanuel Kant: German philosopher, understood that we are not a blank slate, but possess a mind which structures our understanding of the world;
• Emanuel Swedenbourg: Swedish mystic, influenced some of the Transcendentalists with his view of all beings as having emmanated from the Divine;
• Thomas Carlyle: some Englishmen (Charles Dickens in particular) thought Emerson a follower of English historian and philosopher Carlyle; I'm not sure I accept their opinion.

Some Major figures:

• Ralph Waldo Emerson: essayist, lecturer, minor philosopher (in terms of place in academic philosophy, not influence); possibly the most influential figure in the history of American letters.
• Henry David Thoreau: essayist, naturalist, and (for one influential volume) political philosopher; wrote Walden, other beautiful studies of nature, and Civil Disobedience.
• A. Bronson Alcott: the father of the author of Little Women, Bronson Alcott was an innovative educator, a member of the Concord circle, and a founder of the short-lived Fruitland commune. His experimental schools may reflect his sense of innovation at its finest.
• George Ripley: originally a Unitarian minister, Ripley founded the utopian Brook Farm commune, shared influence with the rest of the circle.
• Margaret Fuller: writer and feminist, one of whose works we will glance at.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne: not a "member" of the circle (noting that there was no formal association), but a visitor to Brook Farm, a friend of Emerson and Thoreau (as a wedding present to the Hawthornes, Emerson hired Thoreau to plant them a garden), and a good-natured critic of Transcendentalist metaphysics.
• Julia Ward Howe: also on the fringe of the movement.

Others influenced included

• Herman Melville: he considered Hawthorne a mentor as well as a friend; Melville's disparaging picture of Emerson as The Confidence Man stands, I must note, as unfair as well as inaccurate.
• Walt Whitman: we will specifically mention Emerson's influence on Whitman later in the course.

Transcendentalist Experiments in Living:

• Thoreau's two years in the woods at Walden Pond, to get at the core of life through simplicity.
• Brook Farm Commune, a utopian community founded by George Ripley in which shared labor and thought were to allow for the greatest individual fulfillment; the commune drifted toward a stricter Fourierist structure (probably as dictated by economic necessity), then closed after four years.
• Fruitland Commune, another utopian communal experiment, founded by A. Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane; it was even shorter-lived than Brook Farm.
• Various experimental schools for children and adults founded by Alcott.