LITERARY STUDIES

The Characteristics of American Romanticism

The expansion westwards and the discovery of new territories encouraged a feeling of optimism and hope for a better life. For Irving and Cooper the frontier was an invitation for adventure (it even continued with Mark Twain).

The rise of the self-made man (the American dream)

Emphasis on humanitarianism, noble savage, return to primitive nature for Transcendentalists like R.W Emerson and H. Thoreau.(transcendentalism has been defined philosophically as “the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or attaining knowledge transcending the reach of senses”). Delight in the big and the mighty (large scale) deriving from the mystery of nature in the unexplored continent. As a result, novels, short stories and poems replaced sermons and pamphlets as America’s principal literary forms.

Transcendentalism

Transcendentalist philosophy started in the United States as a religious and political movement and as a branch of Romanticism that emphasized individualism, isolation, intuition, and idealism as basic principles. Yet, transcendentalism is built upon a certain radical idealism that is deeply connected to the construction of the true American identity and self. This philosophy was developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his vision of the idealistic lifestyle of the common American. His philosophy emphhasiwed self-reliance as a key concept and as the American’s most important concern.

The American philosopher and author Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 1803 and died in 1882, was famous for his works in the fields of philosophy, religion, and in literature. He is the father of the Transcendentalist philosophy which stems from Romanticisim (Goodman). Unlike its parent philosophy, Transcendentalism dwells on a meditation on life which connects man to God. He published his ideas in a series of essays and books, merely Nature (1836), "Self-Reliance" (1841a) published in his Essays, an essay that englobes the most important principles of his philosophy, and "The American Scholar" (1837), which describes the roles and expectations of a true intellectual. His ideas centre around the use of personal experience in judgement rather than knowledge of previous facts, individualism and the emphasis on the oversoul, the ability to overcome oneself, as well as self-reliance in opposition to conformity in all the fields of life.

Thus Transcendentalism is defined as man's abiliy to hink for himself intuitively and without external influence. Intuition allows him to reflect on what is true, and gaining knowledge "transcending the reach of senses" (Campbell, 1841, p.484). This philosophy became highly connected to the American Dream in its conception of the ideal American individual. This idealist philosophy advocates that all men share goodness with nature (Brooks, 2012). It brought change to the different fields of life including politics, religion, and the arts. This movement affected the American cultural and political scene, deeply influencing the definition of the Amerian Dream (Brooks, 2012, p.1).

Transcendentalism preached the principles of nobility in total isolation and individualism against conformity which it considered a corruption of the mind. The philosophy creates a line between intuition which is the only guide to man during his isolation to reach an elevated level of isolation (the novel savage), and social conformity which it considered a source of evil.

Transcendentalism became the main philosophy that represented the American ideology during the nineteenth century. The period of the search of identity and the dream of wealth and prosperity, as well as the motivations to move west and to create a life of dignity were best combined in the ideal of self-reliance. The concept emphasized man’s ability to survive on his own without external help or interference (also individualistic), which has led them into a life of adventure and pursuit of success. Emerson considered society as a disruption in the life of man, he comments on conformism saying: "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater" (Emerson, 2007, p.3).  For example, the character Jay Gatsby in Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby embodies this character who is in search of wealth as a self-made man but whose ambitions fail because of the modern world (as a point of difference from the Romantic age during which the Transcendental thought appeared).

The philosophy of Transcendentalism preaches a strong faith in the values of individualism as the key in the quest for selfhood. It is thus through total isolation from outside influences and through finding a deep understanding of the true self that man reaches his highest level of nobility, and purity. Emerson (2003) states that the purity of thought can only be reached through nonconformity "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world" (p. 4). The latter is an idealist principle that refers to a man living in total isolation in his quest for the meaning of the self, and finally connects with the purest part of the soul through intuition (as opposed to outside influences and culture).

            The past is considered as an experience to learn from but not something to dwell in. Emerson considers the past as

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. […]   Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? … To be great is to be misunderstood (Emerson 1841a, p. 6-7).

What matters the most in life for the ranscendentalist is the here and now, that is the actual moment, even if this includes misunderstanding or changing one's views through time.

            Thus, the main principles of Transcendentalism can be summarized in The following lines:

·      Intuition is the source of goodness and purity in man. Man-made sysems will not teach individuals to be good, they can find the right path if they mediate on nature and creation then figure out the right way to behave.

· Self-Reliance : life in the civilized environment is corrupting to the mind, yet nobility can be reached in total isolation where intuition is the only guide.     

· The value of nature: The omnipresence of God allows man to be closer to him. By meditating in nature man is approaching God.

· Man is made close to God. He is sacred and innately pure which connects him to God.

· The rejection of materialism and of technology in favour of the natural world.

· The past is a source of knowledge, only the present matters.

 The Differences between Romanticism and Transcendentalism

· Transcendentalists believed that God was omnipresent, and could be experienced through the intuition.

· Their goal was to “transcend” ordinary life to experience the symbolic and spiritual world around them

· Romanticists thought that religion was something that had to be worked out on a personal level, and one should not subscribe to preconceived religious structures

· Romanticism had a high dependence on feelings, emotions and observations

· Transcendentalists depend on intuition and the guidance of the inner light.

· In romanticism: The natural world was good, while humans were corruptible. The closer human beings could get to their natural state the more pure they would be.

· In transcendentalism: there is an inner goodness in all human beings. The more an individual could tap into their inner light, the closer to God they would become.

In writing, the romanticists often wrote about moral issues, promoting individualism, emotion, freedom and creativity while rejecting reason and tradition. Writers were grouped together based on the similar content of their writing rather than their style. Those within the transcendentalist movement also frequently disagreed with each other over main points of philosophy.