Romanticism and Transcendentalism - Research Paper Example

?Sur Lecturer Romanticism and Transcendentalism The of Romanticism and Transcendentalist such as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne,and Poe communicated Romanticism in the shape of Transcendentalism through the writings of the faithful. These authors have published lengthy works in a range of types on several subjects, expressing Romantic ideals in their own way. The Transcendentalist and Romanticism authors have also conveyed their philosophy, creativity, and concerns through shorter pieces that were printed in the mid-nineteenth century in the periodical publications important to the intellectual life. This paper therefore seeks to discuss how the mentioned Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors use their characters or thematic details to comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment. According to Emersion Waldo’s Nature (1836), “the movement of Transcendentalist was a vast and diverse phenomenon where by the representatives, in many voices, addressed themselves from various perspectives to significant concerns agitating thought in the decades that preceded the Civil War and the New England life”. The author used his characters and themes to inform the New England transcendentalism. In commenting against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment, the authors exemplify commitment to the idealism of philosophy. This, in the view of diversity, may however seem hazardous to claim the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment as a central argument to the Transcendentalist movement. The authors also comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment using their themes, that man and nature is one, and that God and nature need to coexist, and that when a man simplifies his life and lives with nature as one, he would be peaceful with himself and the world. This is a much more view of nature in practice. All these aspects and voices of Romanticism from the authors contribute to the development of a vigorous thought nationally. The impulse of Romanticism and Transcendentalism played a primary role in the mid 19th century. Through the themes and characters in the works of these Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors, they have vastly commented against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment. Through this, they have used their core beliefs in the Age of Enlightenment to make comments. Some of the beliefs the authors have used to comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment include: reason, in which the authors say that truth could actually be discerned through logic and reason; nature, where the authors assert that whatever is natural is also reasonable and good; happiness, the authors assert that happiness is a moral duty; progress, where by the authors argue that humanity will and can progress; and liberty, here the authors argue that everyone is free to lead their lives as they deem fit from the very first moment they had their first breath. The Age of Enlightenment is a period of being awakened scientifically. However, the Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors have commented against its values and tenets. They have done this through their themes and characters by illustrating that enlightenment met, head on, the church and tackling the past issues that were avoided. This is also demonstrated by the characters of the authors by portraying courage of their own understanding. Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe portray their characters as people who do not question anything, in contrary to the Age of Enlightenment that allowed people to pose questions to anything, hence commenting against its values and tenets. The values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment focus on self consciousness leading to a break with the past instead of gradual change and a propensity towards specialization, which resulted to speeding up of division of disciplines. The authors have also used their themes to comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment through portraying the following in their works: religion, where the authors questioned the beliefs of Protestants and Catholics on these values; intellectual inquiry resulting from the opposing views on the tenets of this period; economics through industrial revolution, political, where states and nations emerged to stand against the values; and factions and parties which exhibit a legitimate difference in the opinions concerning the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment. The Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors have commented against its values and tenets that postulate that everything that is worth knowing can be integrated in a set of values and beliefs that every rational person can accept. These tenets also provide moral principles which are rational and offer benchmarks for judgment and conduct. The Age of Enlightenment also prescribes that contradiction to its values and tenets is an obstacles to happiness and progress. However, Emersion, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe have used their characters and themes to comment against these tenets. The characters in their writings have been portrayed as those who regard knowledge that is based on the experience as the best type of understanding. These characters were also interested in all kinds of knowledge. The themes used in the authors’ writings challenges the tendency of the Age of Enlightenment to fall back on the ordinary values and tenets as well as moral beliefs which are seen to result into an invalid causal explanation. The authors, through the characters and themes in their writings have argued for reconsidering cause and effect and even determined that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. They authors assert that knowledge should not be taken for granted and that there should also be doubt. In their writings, Emersion, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe commented against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment through their themes which assert that Enlightenment is a double edge that contains critical spirit and at the same time sought certainty. The authors argue that the Age of Enlightenment did not address racial and gender biases. The period also destroys much that is significant in life as well as life itself. The authors criticize the idea that truth, knowledge and rationality are supremely important. The Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century was both a new beginning and culmination. It involved new and fresh thoughts in the institutionalized tradition. These new approaches and ideas to the old institution set the stage for the revolution set to come. The Age of Enlightenment was also associated with social milieu such as: autonomy of reason; confidence in the capability of discovering causality; progress and perfectibility; assault on authority; principles that govern man, nature and society; disgust with nationalism; and cosmopolitan solidarity of the intellectuals who are enlightened. The Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors have commented against these tenets and values through the characters and themes in their writings. The authors have denied inmate ideas and derived all opinion, knowledge and behavior from the sense experience. Through their characters, the authors have insisted perception is also a transformed sensation. The authors have also asserted through their characters that the Age of Enlightenment was only a great faith within the instrument of reason instead of accumulation of knowledge. According to the authors, what stamped the Age of Enlightenment was the analytical method that was applied to the overall field of knowledge and thought. The authors assert that real power of reason does not lay in possession but in the truth acquisition. Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors portray in their writings through their characters and themes that the ideal of knowledge is a continuous development of the science and logic of the 17th century. The authors have put their emphasis on: observable facts instead of principles; particulars instead of generals; and the experience instead of rational speculation. According to the Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors, the Age of Enlightenment was a mere age of reason that is based on faith, and not the age of faith based on reason. The authors argue that the enlightenment harmonized theological systems, spiritualized the principle of religious authority, and emancipated people from coercion physically. The authors through their writings comment that it was Enlightenment, and not Renaissance or Reformation that dislodged the established ecclesiastic from central control of intellectual and cultural life. The authors also argue that Enlightenment render possible autonomous evolution of the modern culture. Emersion, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe in their works sees this as dogmatism and insist on the free play of the reason. The authors were however pervasive on the Enlightenment. They focused and emphasized on impersonal deity, the common morality and the natural religion of all human beings. In their comment on the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment, they emphasized on deism which is a logical outgrowth of the inquiry of science, study of comparative religion, and rational faith in humanity. All religions could be reduced to commonsense moral code and worship God. The authors of Romanticism and Transcendentalism argue that the motives of a man are qualitatively and quantitatively the same in all places and at all times. Their studies have also revealed a confusion of impulses and chaos, and not identical set of motives or an orderly cosmos. . Emersion, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe in their comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment argue that the root of religious experience is the element of hope, passion and fears. Religion according to these authors may be convenient socially but they lack the generalization of scientific validity when rooted in the sentiment. Through the characters and themes of the Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors, the Age of Enlightenment has been portrayed as a period of rational religion in contradictory terms. The authors have demolished the philosophy of the rationalists of the Enlightenment, which are its self evident truth, its natural rights, and its immutable and universal laws of morality. The Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors have, through their characters, conveyed the power of the intellect in the period of Enlightenment, and also mentioned the limitation of the reason. Elbert argue that “reason was a poor instrument, although it is the only weapon that saw man raised above other animals” (p. 27). The authors believed in an assertion of the first cause or design. The authors through their characters have however accepted the classical ideal of the universal morality of man and the brotherhood of man. The authors have depicted the greatest humanist of the Age of Enlightenment, the authors only had one absolute value; the race of human. According to the Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors, the central theme of Enlightenment is the effort that humanizes the religion. The period used the analytic method of logic in order to prove the existence of the original sin and the inability of utter of the unaided reason of human beings to solve the problem without necessarily accepting the authority of faith. The authors argue that it only becomes intelligible through doctrine of the fall of the man. In summary, although the Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment rescued history from the philologists and the antiquarians. The authors (Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe) communicated Romanticism in the shape of Transcendentalism through the writings of the faithful. They have also expressed Romantic ideals in their own way. The authors have also conveyed their philosophy, creativity, and concerns through shorter pieces of printed publications that were very important to the intellectual life. The paper discussed how the Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors have used their characters and thematic details to comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment. Summarily, the authors have commented against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment using their themes in that man and nature is one, and that God and nature need to coexist, and that when a man simplifies his life and lives with nature as one, he would be peaceful with himself and the world. It is also evident from the analysis that the authors of Romanticism and Transcendentalist like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe has communicated Romanticism in the shape of Transcendentalism through the Faithfull’s writings. These authors have also published lengthy works in different types of subjects, expressing Romantic ideals in their own way. The authors have also conveyed their philosophy, creativity, and concerns through shorter pieces that were printed in the mid-nineteenth century in the periodical publications important to the intellectual life. As a result the paper has discussed how Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Poe, the Romanticism and Transcendentalist authors, use their characters or thematic details to comment against the values and tenets of the Age of Enlightenment. Works Cited Elbert, Monika. The Surveillance of Woman's Body in Hawthorne's Short Stories; Women's Studies 33.1 2004, 23-46 Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. Boston: J. Munroe, 1836. Flynn, Erin E. Intellectual Intuition in Emerson and the Early German Romantics. Philosophical Forum 40.3, 2009, 367-389. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The old manse. The birth-mark, New York: G. P. Putnam, 1851 Rosenberg, Liz. The Best That Earth Could Offer: 'The Birth-Mark,' a Newlywed's Story. Studies In Short Fiction 30.2, 1993, 145. Walsh, Conor. Aminadab in Nathaniel Hawthorne's THE BIRTH-MARK. Explicator 67.4, 2009, 258-260. Webb, Joe. Echoes of Paine: Tracing "The Age Of Reason" Through the Writings of Emerson. 20.3, 2006, 513-525. Wilson, Eric. Weaving: Breathing: Thinking: The Poetics of Emerson's Nature. 10.1, 1996, 5. Read More