Tom Songer
Colette Wanless-Sobel
LIT/255
June 28, 2018

American Renaissance

Contents

• Authors/Writers
• Premises
• Core Beliefs
• Values
• The Begining
• The Reason

Authors

• Henry David Thoreau
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Margaret Fuller

Premise

• Know and become one with the world while remaining seperate and unique with oneself.

Core belief . . .

• It is in the inherent goodness of people and nature.
• Every individual has a universal soul.

Values

• Individualism
• Idealism
• Divinity of Nature

In the begining . . .

• It began as a reform movement in the Unitarian church

The reason.

• It was to protest intellectualism and spirituality, while many yearned for more in a spiritual awakening.

Social Roles & Interest

• Essay
• Poetry
• Correspondance
• Nature
• Social Reform

Change

• Freedom and action in abolitionist movement.
• Created individualism.

Key

• Theme in their various works was the attempt for the reader to achieve a greater awareness of this spiritual presence

Quest for Truth

• Exploration of Nature
• Artistic Expression

Ralph Waldo Emerson

• He urged Americans to stop looking to Europe for inspiration and look to themselves.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson's "Nature" (1836)

• Tells how one perceives a new God and their body, and becomes one with their surroundings

Emerson's "Self-Reliance" (1841)

• Promotes 'self-reliance' as an ideal, even a virtue.
• Contrast to conformity.

Margaret Fuller

• Chief editor, advocate and first feminist of women's rights, education, prison, and the emancipation of slaves doing the time.

"A house is no home unless it contain food and fire for the mind as well as for the body". by Margaret Fuller

Fuller's "The Dial" (1840)

• The first independent and original journal published in this country delivering poems, essays and new ideas free from Europe..

Henry David Thoreau

• He reminded everyone that life is wasted by pursuing wealth and following social customs.

Thoreau's "Walden" (1854)

• He demonstrates to America living in and through nature one can be transcended to live fuller lives.

“The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" (1849)

• It probed to prioritize one's abilities and conscience over the of goverment, since it does nothing for the people, meanwhile critizing social reform, slavery and the war.

Works cited

• Arthur M., The One and the Many: Reflections on the American Identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 57-61.
• Levine, R.S., et al. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. American Literature 1865- 1914. W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.
• Nature, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nature. 1836.
• Photos retrieved from https://www.haikudeck.com