Active Recall otázky - transcendentalismus

What is Transcendentalism?

An American philosophical, literary, and spiritual movement (1830s to 1850s) centered in New England that emphasized intuition, individual experience, and the inherent goodness of humanity and nature.

What did Transcendentalism react against?

It reacted against rationalism and institutional religion, favoring intuition and personal experience.

What are some influences on Transcendentalism?

Continental Romantic philosophy, German Idealism, Coleridge, Unitarianism, Plato, Neoplatonism, Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism), and Swedenborg.

What is Romanticism?

An artistic and intellectual movement that emphasized emotion, imagination, individualism, nature’s beauty, and a mystical view of the world.

What is Unitarianism?

A liberal Christian movement rejecting the Trinity and emphasizing the oneness of God, reason, and individual freedom of belief.

What are the core tenets of Transcendentalism?

Individualism, self-reliance, unity with God and nature (the Over-Soul), intuition over reason, and critique of social conformity.

What is the Over-Soul?

A universal spiritual essence connecting all individuals, representing the unity of all existence, popularized by Emerson.

Who were key figures of Transcendentalism?

Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brownson, the Channings, Elizabeth Peabody, and Jones Very.

What was the Transcendental Club?

An informal group (c. 1836–1840) in Boston where Transcendentalists met to discuss ideas and published The Dial.

What was The Dial?

A journal edited first by Margaret Fuller, then Emerson, used to publish Transcendentalist thought.

What was Brook Farm?

A utopian community experiment connected with some Transcendentalists aiming to live out their ideals.

What is a misinterpretation of "Transcendental"?

Mistaking it as Kantian (conditions of knowing) when Emerson focused on immanence and direct experience.

What is the American Renaissance?

A period (1830s–Civil War) of major American literary achievement marked by originality and depth.

Who popularized the term "American Renaissance"?

F.O. Matthiessen in his 1941 book American Renaissance.

How is the American Renaissance connected to Transcendentalism?

It was shaped by Transcendentalist ideas, especially from Emerson and Thoreau.

Who are key authors of the American Renaissance?

Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and sometimes Poe, Dickinson, Longfellow, Irving, Cooper.

What did Lewis Mumford call the American Renaissance?

The "Golden Day" of American culture and literature.

Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson?

The leader of the Transcendentalist movement, a former Unitarian minister turned essayist and philosopher.

What is Pragmatism?

An American philosophical tradition focusing on the practical consequences of beliefs, with key figures like William James and John Dewey.

What is Abolitionism?

The 19th

What did Emerson believe about individualism?

That people should trust their own thoughts and intuition above societal norms or conventions.

What did Emerson say about intuition and nature?

He believed nature reveals truth and that intuitive understanding unites the perceiver and the perceived.

What is Emerson’s idea of the Over

Soul?

What did Emerson say about institutional religion?

He rejected it in favor of direct individual experience of the divine.

How did Emerson’s thought evolve over time?

He moved from early optimism to a more complex, contingent view of reality, language, and perception.

What later philosophical movements did Emerson anticipate?

Pragmatism and phenomenology.

What is Phenomenology?

A philosophical focus on subjective experience and consciousness as central to understanding reality.

What is Nature (1836)?

Emerson’s foundational essay exploring nature as a divine teacher and spiritual symbol, introducing the "transparent eye-ball

What is The American Scholar (1837)?

Emerson’s call for intellectual independence from Europe, promoting "Man Thinking."

What is The Divinity School Address (1838)?

Emerson’s critique of organized religion and advocacy for the divinity within individuals.

What is Self-reliance

Emerson’s essay advocating nonconformity, intuition, and personal truth over societal pressures.

What is The Over-Soul essy about?

It elaborates the idea of a universal spirit connecting individuals through introspection.

What is Emerson’s essay Circles about?

The idea that truth is constantly evolving and all boundaries are provisional.

What essays are in Essays: Second Series (1844)?

Includes "Experience" and "Politics," reflecting Emerson’s mature thought.

What is The Conduct of Life (1860)?

A later Emerson work exploring contingency and moral effort amid life’s imperfections.

Who was Henry David Thoreau?

Emerson’s associate who turned Transcendentalist ideas into lived experiments and political resistance.

What was Thoreau’s relationship to Emerson?

He was Emerson’s disciple, influenced by him, and lived on his land at Walden.

How did Thoreau live?

As a radical individualist and abolitionist who spent most of his life in Concord, Massachusetts.

What is Thoreau’s idea of "living deliberately"?

Living simply, closely with nature, and reflecting on the essence of life.

How did Thoreau view nature?

As a real, everyday partner and teacher, essential to moral and intellectual life.

What was Thoreau’s critique of government?

He opposed unjust government, emphasizing conscience over law and resisting injustice actively.

What is Civil Disobedience?

Thoreau’s essay advocating nonviolent resistance to unjust laws, inspired by his jail time.

What was the Mexican

American War?

What is Walden (1854)?

Thoreau’s account of his two years living simply near Walden Pond, reflecting on nature and society.

What is the symbolic story in Walden?

A bug hatching from a wooden table as an image of human potential to revive from societal decay.

Who was Walt Whitman?

A poet influenced by Emerson who combined individualism with universal unity.

What are key themes in Whitman’s poetry?

Democracy, unity, inner divinity, nature, sensuality, and universality through the personal.

What style is Whitman known for?

Free verse, catalogues, expansive tone, and lyrical metaphor.

What does "Song of Myself" emphasize?

The unity of self and others, and the divine in the individual.

What is "What is the Grass?" about?

Multiple metaphors exploring life, death, and equality.

What is I Sing the Body Electric about?

A celebration of the human body and spirit, sometimes clinically detailed.

Who was Emily Dickinson?

A reclusive poet who explored subjective truth, death, madness, and divinity with intense originality.

What are key themes in Dickinson’s poetry?

Private individualism, spiritual extremes, death, skepticism of religion, and paradox.

What is Dickinson’s style?

Aphoristic, untitled, with dashes, irregular syntax, and unconventional word use.

What is catachresis in Dickinson’s work?

Using words in surprising or unconventional ways, like "Circumference" for spiritual limits.

What’s the theme of Dickinson’s poem on success?

That failure reveals the true value of success.

What’s the theme of Dickinson’s poem on madness?

That social conformity may be true madness.

How does Dickinson portray God?

Often as cruel, sadistic, or indifferent, questioning religious comfort.

What’s Dickinson’s take on nature and spirituality?

Nature can be a truer spiritual space than churchgoing.

How does Dickinson write about love and death?

As intertwined, mourning loss while imagining metaphysical union.

What are criticisms of Dickinson’s lighter poems?

Some see them as overly quaint or juvenile.

How did a noted editor defend Dickinson?

By stressing her control and restraint, especially in her darker, intense poetry.

Emily Dickinson – “I taste a liquor never brewed”

Overview & Style:

• A short lyric poem using an extended conceit: the speaker is "drunk" not on literal alcohol but on the beauty and ecstasy of summer and nature.

• Uses full rhymes, playful diction, and a persona that’s both innocent and cheeky – “little Tippler,” “Debauchee of Dew.”

• Dickinson draws on religious language (“Seraphs,” “Saints”) but twists it humorously.

• Self-portrayal: The speaker is ecstatic, childlike, yet self-aware. The term “little Tippler” conveys a sense of gleeful abandon, as if summer is a holy intoxication.

Poetic Technique:

• Clear metaphor throughout: nature = intoxicating drink.

• Strong iambic rhythm mimicking a ballad form, contributing to the poem’s sing-song, tipsy energy.

• No slant rhyme here – very musical and coherent in sound.

Emily Dickinson – “These are the days when birds come back”

Overview & Tone Shifts:

• More meditative and melancholic than the first poem.

• Begins with a deceptively nostalgic tone: the return of birds, the beauty of skies.

• Then shifts: “fraud,” “sophistries,” “blue and gold mistake” – suggesting Indian summer is a false return of warmth and life, a kind of seasonal trickery.

• By stanza 4, nature is speaking again, with seeds and leaves acting as signs of real change, not false hope.

Tone Shift:

• The poem moves from suspicion and spiritual doubt (“fraud,” “plausibility”) to a kind of holy acceptance.

• The closing stanzas use religious language: “sacrament,” “communion,” “consecrated bread.” Here, the speaker wishes to participate in the spiritual farewell of summer.

Most Interesting Stanza:

• Possibly stanza 5:

  “Oh, sacrament of summer days,
  Oh, last communion in the haze,
  Permit a child to join,”

• This stanza captures the poem’s spiritual yearning, its invocation of sacred ritual to describe the fading season.

• Poetic originality: personification of the season as a religious rite the speaker begs to partake in—evoking both reverence and fragility.

Comparison & Preference:

• First poem = vivid joy, imaginative metaphor, sensory play.

• Second poem = more introspective, ambiguous, layered with spiritual metaphor and ironic tension.

• Personal Preference? If you favor playful, nature-drunk lyricism, choose the first. If you're drawn to spiritual symbolism and tonal depth, the second might resonate more.

Emily Dickinson – “Title divine — is mine!”

Theme & Interpretation:

• Conflicted declaration of identity: the speaker claims the title of “Wife” without formal recognition (“without the Sign”).

• Ambiguity around who she speaks to – a lover? a married man? God? her art?

• Lines like “Empress of Calvary” merge religious martyrdom with female sacrifice – perhaps a woman’s suffering in love or societal roles.

• Could reflect:

  • An unacknowledged lover’s voice

  • A spiritual marriage to an unattainable person (or ideal)

  • An ironic critique of traditional roles (“Born — Bridalled — Shrouded —” suggests life from birth to death is one long ritualized submission)

Line 10–11 Ambiguity:

“Born — Bridalled — Shrouded —
In a Day —”

• Is she describing herself, who claims this identity all at once? Or “other women”, who go through life’s milestones in one breath?

• “Bridalled” could be a pun on “bridled” – tamed, restrained. Adds a feminist sting.

Emily Dickinson – “My life closed twice before its close”

Interpretation:

• “Closed twice” suggests two massive emotional losses, likely deaths or traumatic separations.

• Bitterness and irony lie in the last lines:

  “Parting is all we know of heaven,
  And all we need of hell.”

• Heaven’s joy is defined only through separation; the speaker implies grief and pain are central to human experience.

• Dual tone: grieving but philosophical.

Emily Dickinson – “The Poets light but Lamps”

Poetic Creation & Legacy:

• Dickinson downplays poetic ego: poets only light lamps—they spark light, not sustain it.

• Suggests poetry is transitory but impactful—even after death, poems continue to shine if the "light" is vital.

• Self-reference in “Each Age a Lens / Disseminating their Circumference —”: the poem itself is a lens disseminating poetic influence.

Walt Whitman – “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (Excerpts)

Whitman’s Persona & Address to the Reader:

• He creates an expansive, democratic “I” that includes all people across time.

• Deeply inclusive tone, but can also feel intrusive or presumptive (“I am with you,” “Just as you…”).

• His poetic self is universal: sexual, flawed, tender, grand. He confesses human sins and glories with equal intimacy.

Tone & Style:

• Uses repetition, cataloging, long free verse lines.

• Speaker addresses future generations directly – a move both generous and potentially arrogant.

• Theme: shared human experience, the continuity of being.

• The self is bodied and spiritual; the poem is both a personal confession and a cosmic connection.

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Comparison: Dickinson vs. Whitman

	Dickinson	Whitman
Tone	Compressed, ironic, inward, elliptical	Expansive, bold, democratic, embracing
Style	Short lines, slant rhymes, dashes, ambiguity	Long free verse lines, repetition, cataloging
Self	Fragmented, mysterious, sometimes hidden	Open, unified, universalizing
Nature	Mystical, deceptive, intoxicating	Sympathetic, continuous with the self
Reader	Often not directly addressed, intimate but veiled	Explicitly addressed, sometimes confrontationally so
Spirituality	Symbolic, ironic, ambivalent	Mystical, celebratory, inclusive