1、Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882),Emersons Early Life,Born on Election Day in 1803 in Boston, MA. Born on the same street as the birth home of Benjamin Franklin. Father was a famous minister who encouraged young Ralph to pursue philosophy at a young age.,Teacher and Priest,After graduation, Emerson be
2、came a school teacher in suburban Boston. 1823 graduated from seminary school and became a priest to follow in the footsteps of his father.,Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism,Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882),The British critic Matthew Arnold said the most important writings in English in the 1
3、9th century had been Wordsworths poems and Emersons essays.,Emerson,His wife, Ellen Tucker, died tragically young from tuberculosis（肺结核）, leaving Emerson a legacy that allowed him to spend the rest of his life traveling, lecturing, and writing. Nature (1836), a major contribution to American Romanti
4、cism and Transcendentalism, appeared anonymously and was favorably received among his friends.,Emerson,Originally an address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard in 1837, The American Scholar was a radical document in its time, a blow against an educational system that favored rote死记硬背 learning,
5、 declamation, and a prescribed curriculum for all undergraduates.,Emerson,Later in the century, an American educational revolution brought concentration choices and elective courses to our college and universities. This reform was inspired in great part by Emersons pronouncements about scholarship,
6、about the idea of an education, and about the nature of thinking itself.,Much of his spiritual insight comes from his readings in Eastern religion, especially Hinduism(印度教), Confucianism（儒家思想，儒教）, and Islamic Sufism （伊斯兰教的苏菲派）(即Islamic mysticism神秘主义 ).,The Founder of Transcendentalism: Ralph Waldo E
7、merson,What is Transcendentalism?,Transcendentalism was a literary movement that flourished during the middle 19th Century (1836 1860). It began as a rebellion against traditionally held beliefs by the English Church that God superseded the individual.,Introduction to Transcendental Thought,In 1831
8、makes his first trip to England where he meets poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth who introduce him to Romantic notions of nature and philosophy.,Transcendentalist Philosopher,Returns to Concord, MA in 1835 and writes his first important work Nature which describes how humans find
9、God within nature:“In the woods is perpetual youth In the woods we return to reason and faith.”,Transcendentalists departed from orthodox Calvinism（卡尔文教的命定论） in that they believed in the importance and efficacy(功效) of human striving, as opposed to the bleaker Puritan picture of complete and inescapa
10、ble human depravity（堕落，邪恶）.,Principles of Emersons transcendentalism,1.The over-soul: The “over-soul” as called by Emerson was an all-pervading unitary spiritual power of goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent, from which all things came and of which everyone was a part. Generally, the over-soul refer
11、red to spirit of God as the most important thing in the universe.,2.Primacy of Individual: Individual was the most important element of society. As the regeneration of society could only come about through the regeneration of the individual, his perfection, his self-culture and self-improvement, and
12、 not the frenzied effort to get rich, should become the first concern of his life. (It was a reaction against the Calvinist concept that man is totally depraved, he is sinful and can not hope to be saved except through the grace of God.),3. Primacy of Nature: Symbolic of the Spirit or God /Garment o
13、f the over-soul,Transcendentalism refers to a kind of attitude that believes in the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining knowledge transcending the reach of the senses. In another word, transcendentalists believe that man learns things not only through rea
14、soning based on his five senses, or by his own sensual experiences, and that he also learns truth spontaneously, out of his soul or instincts. (to be continued),In a literal sense, it means the belief that knowledge and principles of reality can be obtained by studying thought, not necessarily by pr
15、actical experiences. In this sense the term is almost synonymous with the word mysticism. It was first applied to the German philosophical systems of Hegel, Kant, and Fichte. Later the word came to be used more loosely to apply to a movement that began in New England around 1830, the spokesman of wh
16、ich was Ralph Waldo Emerson.,Criticism,The famous American poet Edgar Allan Poe（埃德加 爱伦 坡） had a deep dislike for transcendentalism, calling its followers “Frogpondians“ after the pond on Boston Common. He ridiculed their writings in particular by calling them “metaphor-run,“ lapsing into “obscurity
17、for obscuritys sake“ or “mysticism for mysticisms sake,Famous Lecturer,Emerson went on to become a famous lecturer sharing his transcendental philosophy throughout the country. Among his quotable phrases: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates(颤动) to that iron string.” “To be great is to be misunderst
18、ood.”,Late Life and Death,Upset in the 1860s by the coming of the Civil War, Emerson lived a quiet life with his family. His house burnt to the ground in 1872. Died on April 27th, 1882.,As a great prose-poet, Emerson influenced a long line of American poets, including Walt Whitman（惠特曼）, Emily Dickin
19、son（迪金森）, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, and Robert Frost.He is also credited with influencing the philosophies of John Dewey, George Santayana, Friedrich Nietzsche, and William James.,Major works,Nature (1836): “The Universe is composed of Nature and the Soul, Spirit is pres
20、ent everywhere” The book presents a theory of the universe, its origin, present condition, and final destiny. Natures voice pushed American Romanticism into a new phase, the phase of New England Transcendentalism, the summit of American Romanticism/ American Renaissance.,The American Scholar (1837):
21、 In this essay, Emerson calls for a distinctive American style, dealing with American subjects. Thus, regarded as “Americas Declaration of Intellectual Independence”,Self-Reliance (1841): This essay focuses on his discussion on the individuals relations with his cultureculture in the broadest defini
22、tion, thus exploring the implications of the fierce individualism at the heart of his Transcendental faith: the dignity, the ultimate sanctityholiness of each human being.,The Over-Soul (1841): It is a philosophic work, in which Emerson gives an explicit discussion on his idea of the over-soul, with a most comprehensive and sensitive analysis of the varieties of religious experience.,Appreciation of the work,1. The main idea of the work (reference to p33) 2. Understanding the excerpt,Thanks for your listening!,
