American Transcendentalist Literature
The Transcendentalist movement consisted of a group of people that were skeptical of the status quo in religion, science and politics. They studied philosophy and wrote great literature. In fact they even influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is the American who is most often thought of when transcendentalism is mentioned. During the height of the popularity of the movement he was at the center. On December 9, 1841 Emerson gave a speech titled “Transcendentalism” at Boston’s Masonic Temple. In it he strongly stood up for less rigid attitudes towards nature for example he shared his experience in nature as being the opposite of someone who goes into nature to classify everything in sight into its proper Species and Order.
He told the audience,
“I cannot greatly honor minuteness in details so long as there is no hint to explain the relation between things and thoughts; no ray upon the metaphysics of conchology, of botany, of the arts, to show the relation of the forms of flowers, shells, animals, architecture to the mind, and build science upon ideas” (Emerson, 1842, iii ).
They were influenced by Hume who argued that “no empirical proof of religion could be satisfactory.” In 1825 the Critical Essay upon the Gospel of St. Luke by F.D.E. Schleirmacher argued that the Bible was a book about human history and of a culture that lived in a different time and place then contemporary New England. In 1933 an English translation from the German of Spirit of Hebrew Poetry (1782) written by Johann Gottfried van Herder which reflected the same view as Schleirmacher about the Bible.
Goodman (2011) explains that “Herder blurred the lines between religious texts and humanly produced poetry, casting doubt on the authority of the Bible, but also suggesting that texts with equal authority could still be written.” Goodman argues that both Schleirmacher and Herder were highly influential on the Transcendentalist movement and that Herder’s work may have sparked Emerson’s Nature in 1836.
In January, 1842 he gave another speech to the Boston audience at the Masonic Temple. He defined Transcendentalists by comparing the followers as Idealists and contrasting their beliefs with those of Materialists.
“What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842. As thinkers mankind have ever divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists: the first class founded on experience, the second on consciousness; the first class beginning to think from the data of the senses, the second class perceive that the senses are not final, and say the senses give us representations of things, but what are the things themselves, they cannot tell. . . The Idealist on the poser of thought and of Will on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture. The idealist contends that his way of thinking is in higher nature” (Emerson, 1842, p. 179).
In today’s world the Materialists are more like the Capitalists. The Idealists are perhaps more like the 99% who believe in good pay for hard work, fair treatment and the American Dream. Henry David Thoreau was very much like the Idealists of today and he applied his beliefs and essays about the Transcendentalist Movement in his writings. His writings also contained works considering nature and philosophy. He also wrote political works that are still appreciated today.
Henry David Thoreau wrote the often repeated quote,
“It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders.”
He is writing here about the difference between himself and most of the people he sees around him. He starts by explaining that he can understand that not everyone can devote themselves to a cause like ridding the world of some terrible injustice. He is arguing that when a person sees a wrong right in front of his eyes but ignores the wrong just going about business as usual; that is not acceptable behavior. He is saying that for himself he can’t go about his own daily habits in good conscious knowing that someone is suffering so he can carry on as usual.
Thoreau wrote On the Duty of Civil Disobedience in 1849.Its original title was Resistance to civil government. Reading this work reminds me of the people involved in the Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS). For example, Thoreau wrote in his essay,
“To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at one no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” (Thoreau, 1849)
If people of the OSW movement were asked, “Would you like a better government?” I suggest every one of them would say, “Yes!” Complaints have been made about the Occupy Movement not have a leader, not having one coherent complaint. Thoreau would be a great help now because he could explain his own beliefs in the importance of individual will and action. He could explain that the hundreds of issues that OWS protestors have complaints about come under the one umbrella of the desire for a better government.
Thoreau was imprisoned for an act of civil disobedience in 1846. He refused to pay his poll tax because, “I cannot for an instant recognize . . . as my government (that) which is the slave’s government also” (Thoreau, 1849). He was wholeheartedly against slavery and had been refusing to pay his toll tax for six years as a protest against slavery.
Thoreau was not kept in jail any longer than one night because someone anonymously paid his tax for him. From reading about the time, he doesn’t seem to have been very happy that he was forced to leave jail. His conscious told him he could not show any support of slavery in any way, shape or form so he chose to object to paying his poll tax. His conscience could not allow him to pay the tax. The other members of the Transcendentalist Movement no doubt had an influence on him from their joint discussions and writings. The individual right of human beings to live in dignity was a well respected theme. Also the idea that people could sit by and let something terrible go on in their name was not acceptable to those in the Movement.
In Civil Disobedience he also says, “Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consistent with wrong-doing” (Thoreau, 1849). He had given the example that lawyers speak a truth but it is the truth of the laws of the government not the ‘higher truth’ which engaged the Transcendentalists.
His essays and writings about following one’s own conscious and using civil disobedience have been a great influence on great people in history like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi. He is also an inspiration to contemporary thinkers and people who support protesting the government using civil disobedience like Christopher Hedges and Daniel Berrigan.
Something unique about Thoreau was his choice to never marry and never have many possessions except for his books. When he ran out of money he would find a job. He lived with different people in his family at different times and sometimes with Emerson and his family. Emerson described Thoreau as being a rich man, “He (Thoreau) chose to be rich by making his wants few and supplying them himself” (Furtak, 2011). Thoreau was a person “who walked his talk.”
Christopher Hedges is an author and intellectual. He is a religious person; his father was a minister. He has called out people to join in the civil disobedience of the OWS movement when he said,
"We don’t need leaders directives from aboveformal organizations. We need to physically get into the public square & create a mass movement.
“We need you and a few of your neighbors to begin. We need you to walk down to your Bank of America branch & protest
“We don’t need to waste our time appealing to the Democratic Party or writing letters to the editor.
“We don’t need more diatribes on the Internet. And once you do that you begin to create a force these elites always desperately try to snuff out—resistance. We need you to come to Union Square.” (Hedges, 2011)
Hedges is a serious person who didn’t just jump on the band wagon of “mass protest.” He was a war correspondent for twenty years and came out of that experience strongly against war. He comes from a strong religious tradition and has written many books, articles and essays as he struggles to understand the best way for men and women to make a difference and try to force government to correct its wrongs. Hedges has come to the same conclusion that Thoreau did 150 years ago.
Hedges is also influenced by someone he respects very much, Daniel Berrigan who, like Thoreau has been imprisoned for his civil disobedience. Unlike Thoreau Berrigan has spent much more time in jail. Father Berrigan is now 87 years old. Hedges wrote this account of Berrigan’s fist act of civil disobedience.
“Forty years ago this month, Father Daniel Berrigan walked into a draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, with eight other activists, including his brother, Father Philip Berrigan, and removed draft files of young men who were about to be sent to Vietnam. The group carted the files outside and burned them in two garbage cans with homemade napalm. Father Berrigan was tried, found guilty, spent four months as a fugitive from the FBI, was apprehended and sent to prison for eighteen months” (Hedges, 2008).
Father Berrigan and his brother both Catholic priests come from a religious tradition of dissent. Two of his greatest influences were Doris Day and Thomas Merton a Trappist Monk. Here Berrigan describes how Day influenced him.
“"Dorothy Day taught me more than all the theologians," he says of the founder of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement. She awakened me to connections I had not thought of or been instructed in, the equation of human misery and poverty and warmaking. She had a basic hope that God created the world with enough for everyone, but there was not enough for everyone and warmaking." (as quoted by Hedges, 2008)
Dorothy Day was not a leader in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church nor did she want to strive to be the Pope or have some kind of political power in the Catholic Church. She was a person who looked into her conscience and decided she could not live honestly and truthfully if she supported war.
And here is an example of his roots in religious faith and how it effects his acts of resistance.
"The good is to be done because it is good, not because it goes somewhere," he says. "I believe if it is done in that spirit it will go somewhere, but I don't know where. I don't think the Bible grants us to know where goodness goes, what direction, what force. I have never been seriously interested in the outcome. I was interested in trying to do it humanly and carefully and nonviolently and let it go" (as quoted to Hedges, 2008).
Chris Hedges has announced if the United States starts a war on Iran he will refuse to pay his income tax. Here is a portion of an article where he explains his reasoning.
“I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran--which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election--will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties.”
Here is an obvious parallel with Thoreau’s act of civil disobedience of refusing to pay his poll tax for six years.
There are other parallels between the Transcendentalist Movement and the contemporary Occupy Wall Street Movement and anti-war movement.
One strong element in common is the right of individuals to practice free will. Citizens of the United States should have a right to their civil liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom to protest. Both movements have a tradition of non-violent civil disobedience. Although concerning their protest against slavery, Thoreau and Emerson finally supported violent resistance to force the end to slavery.
Both movements were based in a serious contemplation of the spiritual and philosophy. Ironically the contemporary examples such as Father Berrigan, Christopher Hedges and Doris Day are part of the organized religion. It should be noted they are part of what is considered the religious left. For instance Father Berrigan explained about his mentor,
“Merton's "great contribution to the religious left," he says, "was to gather us for days of prayer and discussion of the sacramental life. He told us, 'Stay with these, stay with these, these are your tools and discipline and these are your strengths.'" (as quoted in Hedges, 2008).
The Transcendentalist Movement (TM) was not founded in the religious traditions that used the Bible as the source of worship. From the two talks Emerson gave in Boston it can be understood that he was more interested in the “metaphysical” aspects of the world around. One of the great philosophies of the TM was that there was something greater to contemplate. Transcendence to them didn’t mean literally flying like angels. They were trying to transcend their thought and philosophy to higher truths and higher more creative and real ways of living.
Thoreau was an extreme example of living without the burdens of his contemporary world. But he demonstrated the stark difference between the ‘Materialists’ as Emerson called them and the ‘Idealists’ or Transcendentalists. Materialists were individuals who were so interesting in getting things that they didn’t notice the injustices around them. Emerson even said that even if the Materialist did notice injustice s/he wouldn’t do anything to right the wrong. They were too interested in their own selfish pursuits or involved in self-interest.
Today the comparison can be made of the Materialists to the capitalists and the consumer society. Probably members of the TM would be shocked and horrified to see the amount of things that fill people’s houses now; including the fact that few people own books. Their argument that materialism is bad for the country is evidently true and they had the foresight to predict that problems would arise from materialism.
The TM had some literature and persons who set forward a philosophy for them to build their beliefs upon. Contemporary dissenters have a great foundation of writers and activists to build their beliefs upon. The Occupy Wall Street members teach each other about civil disobedience. People from all over the world have come to the United States to help train others in how to protest using non-violence. Workshops for protestors are also organized (Des Moines Register, 2011). So this demonstrates two points that are different now than in Emerson’s day. Firstly the movement is global and secondly there are hundreds of thousands more people involved.
Both the TM movement and the OWS movement agree in the idea that there is ‘something’ higher, like a higher truth, a higher justice and a higher way of doing things. There is the belief that the world can be a better place and a place where justice is a normal way of business as usual. These beliefs refer back also to Emerson’s description of the ‘Idealist.’
One thing the TM and OWS have in common which may be is not so obvious is their interest in the arts and the creative life. In the OWS protests songs and posters are a major part of the protest. People have come up with many creative ways to show their dissent that still stays within the boundaries of civil disobedience. We have the great literature, the essays and poetry, from the TM. The movement of today will come up with the same as evidenced by Hedges intelligent and deeply thoughtful work.
Both the TM and the OWS movement understand that civil disobedience is not an easy way to protest. It’s much easier to pick up a stick and hit someone you disagree with then to remain seated while someone sprays pepper spray in your face.
Both the TM and OWS felt there was a time to discuss and to vote political issues; and there was an appropriate time take action; to use the tool every person with a conscious has – civil disobedience. Although compared to violent protest civil disobedience may seem passive; it is an active way to protest. Civil disobedience isn’t a choice made by cowards; it is a choice made by courageous individuals who believe that there a better way for people to live. Interestingly Civil Disobedience Training is often offered by the Quakers and takes place in Friends Meeting Houses (DM Register, 2011).
Members of the Transcendentalist Movement took information from other countries including philosophy and religious history. The most important thing though is they looked into themselves for answers to the large meta-physical questions. In doing so they produced a uniquely American tradition which is still honored today.
Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. (1870). The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson in Two Volumes. Vol. 1. Boston: Fields, Osgood, & Co.
Furtak, Rick Anthony, "Henry David Thoreau", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
Goodman, R. (2011). "Transcendentalism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta(ed.), URL =
Hedges, Chris. 2008. Daniel Berrigan: Forty Years After Catonsville. The Nation. 20 May 2008.Accessed 4 Dec. 2011from from
Hedges, Chris. 2007. Hands Off Iran. 21 Nov. 2007. The Nation. Retrieved 4 Dec. 2011 from
Henry David Thoreau Biography (2011). American Transcendentalism. Accessed1 Dec. 2011 from
Thoreau, H. D. (1985). A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers ; Walden, or, Life in the Woods ; The Maine Woods ; Cape Cod. Sayre, R. F. ed. U. of VA: Electronic Text Ctr. Out of copyright text comes originally from the Literary Classics of the U.S reprint, 1985,
Thoreau, H. D. (1849). Civil Disobedience. Accessed 4 Dec. 2011 from
Nonviolent civil disobedience training will be offered Sunday by Occupy Des Moines participants. (2011) The Des Moines Register. 30 Nov. 2011. Accessed 4 dDec. 2011 from
