Renaissance American Major Questions What was the American Renaissance? Who were its major authors? What were its major themes? The American Renaissance? Was it a renaissance? In, 1820, a British critic had asked: "In the four quarters of the Globe, who reads an American book?" By the late 1830s, Emerson was being reviewed in the London Times and had been translated into French and German Between 1850-1855: Walden, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, and Leaves of Grass. In the four quarters of the globe, people are reading American books. The Dominant Culture's Optimism Individualism Perfectionism Abundance Separate spheres The power of market capitalism A New Faith in People Let it stand as a principle that just government should derive from the people. But let the people be taught that they are not able to govern themselves. (Jeremy Belknap, 1787) I believe that man can be elevated; man can become more and more endowed with divinity; and as he does he becomes more God-like in his character and capable of governing himself. Let us go on elevating our people, perfecting our institutions, until democracy shall reach such a point of perfection that we can acclaim with truth that the voice of the people is the voice of God. (Andrew Jackson, 1828) A New Faith in America As it is impossible for a man without remembrance to have imagination, so that intellectual quality cannot belong to a people born yesterday -- whose whole past dates from yesterday. A live nation can always cut a deep mark and can have the best authority...from its own soul.... As if it were necessary to trot back generation after generation to the eastern records! As if the beauty and sacredness of the demonstrable must fall behind that of the mythical! As if men do not make their mark out of [their own] times! Ralph Waldo Emerson Biography Lived 1803-1882 From Concord, Mass. Followed family tradition into Unitarian preaching Became essayist and lecturer on the lyceum circuit Major works Nature (1836) "The American Scholar" (1837) "Self-Reliance" (1841) Ralph Waldo 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. Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the last judgment." (Emerson, "Self-Reliance") Ralph Waldo Emerson "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.... The virtue in most request is conformity.... Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist." (Emerson, "Self-Reliance")
"Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close....Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves." (Emerson, "The American Scholar") Henry David Thoreau Biography Lived 1817-1862 From Concord, Mass. Emerson's friend and neighbor Tried to practice what Emerson preached Major works "Civil Disobedience" (1849) Walden (1854) Henry David Thoreau I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about. (Thoreau, Walden) Henry David Thoreau [W]e live meanly, like ants.... Our life is frittered away by detail.... The nation...is just such an unwieldly and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense.... I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary.... [And] in proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be nor solitude, poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. (Thoreau, Walden) Henry David Thoreau I heartily accept the motto,--"That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe,--"That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. (Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience") Walt Whitman Biography Lived 1819-1892 From New York Working odd jobs as teacher and hack journalist until Emerson "brings him to a boil" in his thirties Major works Leaves of Grass (1855) Whitman--I Hear America Singing I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work.... Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. Whitman--I Sing the Body Electric I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.... The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred, No matter who it is, it is sacred.... Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you, Each has his or her place in the procession. The Dominant Culture's Anxiety Individualism Perfectionism Abundance Separate spheres The power of market capitalism Nathaniel Hawthorne Biography Lived 1804-1864 From Salem, Mass. Puritanical streak Major works The Scarlet Letter (1850) Nathaniel Hawthorne There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Emily Dickinson Biography Lived 1830-1886 From Amherst, Mass. Failed romances left her to spiral in upon herself Major works Poetry (of 1800 poems, only seven or so published during her lifetime) Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death-- He Kindly stopped for me-- The Carriage held but just Ourselves-- And Immortality. We slowly drove--He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility. Herman Melville Biography Lived 1819-1891 From New York Shipped out to sea at age 20 Major works Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), Moby-Dick (1851) The Confidence Man (1857) Herman Melville 1. Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright.
2. One trembles to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individuals own innocent self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts. Edgar Allan Poe Biography Lived 1809-1849 From Richmond, Virginia Mother and wife die of consumption Ran off to West Point where he flunked out Became writer and newspaperman Major works Short stories: "The Black Cat," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher" Poems: "The Raven" Edgar Allan Poe From childhood's hour I have not been As others were--I have not seen As others saw--I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone. Conclusions These last four (Dickinson, Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne) are a cautionary tale on the first three (Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman). The self, freed from society, will be lonely. The human heart is not pure and godly but conflicted and perverse, and if it leads the search for anything, it is likely to lead to disaster. The result will be a self that fails spectacularly (like Poe) or simply fades away (like Dickinson).