The American Scholar

English 5571 - American Transcendentalism

American Transcendentalism denotes a philosophical, social reformist, and literary movement of the mid-19th century, in the midst of what is more generally known as the Romantic period of American literature. Since the publication of F.O. Matthiessen's book in 1941, this period has also been called the American Renaissance, the time of a flowering of a distinctively American literature. (Source: Course Syllabus, Overview)

    Assignments:
  1. Emerson's Clarion Call: Is It Practical?
  2. Prospectus for Final Paper
  3. Journal (notes before the writing process)
  4. Presentation on Theodore Parker
  5. Presentation on the 1844 Dial, No. 3
  6. Final Paper on Hawthorne's Artist & Emerson's Idealism

    Texts:
  1. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller: Selected Works, John Carlos Rowe
  2. A Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, Margaret Fuller
  3. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
  4. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
  5. Selected Poems, Emily Dickenson
  6. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass
  7. Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories, Nathaniel Hawthorne
  8. Bartleby and Benito Cereno, Herman Melville
  9. The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman
  10. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays, Henry David Thoreau
  11. Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau
  12. Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
  13. Various journal articles, short stories, and essays from other texts 
    Other:
  1. Actual page of in-class notes