Notes (pgs.

207-214) The American Renaissance

Hawthorne and Melville
Melville was an ex-sailor with little formal education. He had written a novel about his
adventures
Nathaniel Hawthorne was 15 years older than Melville and was well educated, reserved, and a
bit of a loner. He had recently published The Scarlet Letter
They immediately started on the book Moby-Dick
Declaration of Liberty Independence
Melville very strongly defended America in regards to literary work and said that Hawthorne
was the next William Shakespeare
Writers used the word renaissance to describe Americas growing power in the field of
literature. The word means rebirth
Intellectual and Social Life in England
The burst of American literature can be traced back to the social ferment of New England
The interest in expanding literature was found in the Lyceum Movement which begun in
Massachusetts
Social causes, both reasonable and crackpot, abounded during this time
True Reality is Spiritual
Emersons utopian group was called The Transcendental Club
For Emerson, Transcendentalism was not a new philosophy but The very oldest of thoughts
cast into the mold of these new times
Emerson and Transcendentalism: The American Roots
Though Emerson had his doubts about the and was skeptical about most ideas and projects, he
was the most prominently known figure in the group largely because of his lectures and books
Transcendentalism grafted ideas from Europe and Asia into onto a home-grown American
philosophical stem
The Puritans believed that God revealed himself to people through the Bible and through the
physical world
Emersons Optimistic Outlook
Emersons mystical view of the world sprang not from logic but from intuition
Intuition is our capacity to know things spontaneously and immediately through our emotions
rather than through our reasoning abilities
Emersons sense of optimism appealed to audiences who lived in a period of economic
downturns and conflict over slavery