The American

Origins of a Renaissance

Renaissance (n): the activity, spirit, or time of the great revival of art, literature, and learning in Europe beginning in the 14th century and extending to the 17th century, marking the transition from the medieval to the modern world.

renaissance: a renewal of life, vigor, interest, etc.; rebirth; revival

-”Renaissance.” Dictionary.com. 11 January 2011. Web.

Origins of a Renaissance

o In 1941, Writer and historian F.O. Matthiessen coined the term “American Renaissance” in his synonymous book

oApplies to the years of 1840-1865

oRenaissance = Rebirth, why now? Wasn’t America just born?

The State of American Literature

o “Magazines, and the stories needed to fill them, had become very popular with a growing audience of prosperous and educated readers” (181 red).

o Average cost of a book in 1840: Up to $700

o Some authors (Irving, Longfellow, Hawthorne) wrote stories soooooo well…

they changed our understanding of history

“A Declaration of Literary

Independence”• Herman Melville: “…let America first praise mediocrity, even, in her own children, before she praises…the best excellence in the children of any other land” (181 red).

• Noah Webster: “America must be as independent in literature as she is in politics, as famous for arts as for arms” (181 red).

• “The American Renaissance was not literally a “rebirth”; rather…it marked the arrival of cultural maturity” (181 red).

Other Stuff at This Time

• “In 1828, these voters elected frontiersman Andrew Jackson as president, marking the arrival of the common people in American politics” (p. 180 blue)

More Other Stuff…(?)o “[New England] had been traditionally

noted for its interest in self-improvement and intellectual pursuits…” (182 red)

o The Lyceum Movement: “…founded in 1826 to improve education…had a number of goals, ranging from training teachers to establishing museums” (182 red)

o “New England was a center of numerous reform movements” (183 red).

Transcend…huh?o Transcend (v): 1. to rise above or go

beyond; overpass; exceed: to transcend the limits of thought. 2. to outdo or exceed in excellence, elevation, extent, degree, etc.; surpass; excel. 3. to be above and independent of (the universe, time, deities etc.).

o “The word referred to the idea that matters of ultimate reality—God, the cosmos, the self—transcend, or go beyond, human experience” (183 red).

Basic Tenets of Trans...yeah.

o “Transcendentalists were idealists in this philosophical sense” (184 red).

o “…reality is not ‘out there’ in material objects but instead exists in our ideas about those objects” (180 blue).

o “…intuition is a more valuable guide that sensory experience in grasping what nature really is” (180 blue).

o “They optimistically believed in human perfectibility…” (184 red).

o Transcendentalist writing was “…educational, practical, mystical, poetical, and political” (184).

Emerson’s Transcendentalism

oEmerson: “Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact” (from Nature)

oEmerson: “To create—to create—is the proof of a divine presence” (from “The American Scholar”)

Emerson’s Transcendentalism

o Emerson: “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men—that is genius” (“Self-Reliance”)

o “[Emerson] believed that ordinary human beings had limitless potential” (p. 180 blue)

oHey Ralph, ever hear of William Hung?oWhat sense can we make of this?

The Big Pictureo“Emerson’s optimism struck a

sympathetic chord with audiences…Your condition today…may be mean, dull, and routine, but it need not be” (185).

oThe big question:Does this kind of thinking have a practical place in modern America?

Questions or

Comments?