美国文学简史常耀信版Chapter_4_Transcendentlism课件.pptVIP

Transcendentalism A form of idealism /philosophical romanticism first developed in Europe, then reached America and flourished in New England during 1830s- Civil War; “transcendental”, a term long used in philosophy to describe truths beyond reach of man’s limited senses; in philosophy and literature, belief in a higher reality than that found in sense experience or in a higher kind of knowledge than that achieved by human reason. Transcendentalism The Transcendental Club Two major activities: - Between 1840 and 1844, publishing sixteen issued of The Dial, a quarterly. - Establishing Brook Farm in 1841, a utopian community, supposing to be better enabled towards self-realization. 2. Transcendentalism as a philosophy A way of knowing (or epistemology ); Individuals can intuitively receive higher truths. The visible world, if intuited with imagination, offers endless clues about the invisible world whose truth stand eternally behind the factual world perceived by the senses. For literature—an emphasis on symbolic representation. Nature ----morally good, proving God’s presence everywhere in his creation. The human nature is accordingly all good. Transcendentalism was the reversed form of Calvinism. 3. Transcendentalism—not having the kind of logical consistency Three sources can be identified: - neo-Platonism The belief that spirit prevails over matter and there is an ascending scale of spiritual values rising to absolute Good. --German Romanticism (idealism ) Emphasizing intuition as a means of piercing to the real essence of things. -- Eastern mysticism interpreted from ancient Asia. (Confucius, Mencius and Hinduism) The ancient Greek philosopher Plato developed the notion of a higher reality that exists beyond the powers of human comprehension. Plato explained that the idea of absolute goodness transcends human description. Other philosophers then applied this concept, known as transcenden