Class today: November 21st

1. Application of the characteristics of the Transcendental Movement to Into the Wild.

The Transcendental Movement

The term transcendentalism as used in American literature can be defined as a belief in the innate divinity of every man and faith in his capability to understand immortality, the soul, and God through intuition rather than through pure reason. The Transcendentalists considered human nature divine. Since the secret voice of God is within man, he has no need to obey any other command. He can trust himself.

Transcendentalism emerged in New England in 1815 with the liberal preaching of William Ellery Channing and reached its flowering in the late 1830’s and 40’s with the publication of Emerson’s Nature and other essays. Among the major ideas that the Transcendentalists emphasized were the desire to live close to nature, the dignity of manual labor, the essential unity of all religions, as spirit of tolerance and optimism, a defiance of tradition, a personal relationship with God, a belief in democracy, and a disregard for external authority.

Characteristics of Transcendentalism

1. Sense knowledge is unreliable
2. All reality is in the long run spiritual
3. The only apt instrument for contacting the world outside is the mind
4. By the mind, they do not mean the reasoning process (also unreliable) but a special faculty which puts them immediately in touch with truth without any other aid or contact.
5. All reality is One. (This Oneness is called God or the Oversoul).
6. There is no distinction between God, men, and things for they are all participants of the One.
7. Transcendentalism came to mean inspiration or intuition as a method of arriving at truth.

2. Into the Wild presentation assignment