Kategoria BISAC: Philosophy >> Movements - Transcendentalism

The late Perry Miller once stated, "I have been compelled to insist that the mind of man is the basic factor in human history," and his study of the mind in America has shaped the thought of three decades of scholars. The fifteen essays here collected--several of them previously unpublished--address themselves to the facets of the American consciousness and to their expression in literature from the time of the Cambridge Agreement to the Nobel Prize acceptance speeches of Hemingway and Faulkner. A companion volume to Errand into the Wilderness, its general theme is one adumbrated in...

The discovery of the Rosetta Stone and the subsequent decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics captured the imaginations of nineteenth-century American writers and provided a focal point for their speculations on the relationships between sign, symbol, language, and meaning. Through fresh readings of classic works by Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville, John T. Irwin's American Hieroglyphics examines the symbolic mode associated with the pictographs.

Irwin demonstrates how American Symbolist literature of the period was motivated by what he calls...

For decades, Daniel S. Malachuk contends, readers have misinterpreted the Transcendentalists as worshipping democracy and secularizing personhood. Two...

Heidegger s Shadow is an important contribution to the understanding of Heidegger s ambivalent relation to transcendental philosophy. Its contention is that Heidegger recognizes the importance of transcendental philosophy as the necessary point of entry to his thought, but he nonetheless comes to regard it as something that he must strive to overcome even though he knows such an attempt can never succeed. Engelland thoroughly engages with major texts such as Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Being and Time, and Contributions and traces the progression of Heidegger s...

In this book of creative nonfiction set in Michigan, Jan Shoemaker shares her quest and her vision. The lovely writing is also poiinted in its questioning. Pieces treat Nature, relationships, teaching, age, love. Most of these essays have been previously published in fine literary magazines.

American Transcendentalism is often seen as a literary movement -- a flowering of works written by New England intellectuals who retreated from society and lived in nature. In Transcendentalism and the Cultivation of the Soul, Barry M. Andrews focuses on a neglected aspect of this well-known group, showing how American Transcendentalists developed rich spiritual practices to nurture their souls and discover the divine. The practices are common and simple -- among them, keeping journals, contemplation, walking, reading, simple living, and conversation. In approachable and accessible prose,...

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau went into the woods to experience a simplistic lifestyle dictated by his transcendentalist beliefs. The life he lived, including how and why he chose to seclude himself from society, is detailed in Walden. Thoreau demonstrates the utility of living both simply and deliberately while appreciating the serenity of nature. He chose to live fully in nature by Walden Pond for two years and details the lasting impression this time had on him. While living modestly in the woods may not be the call-to-action for all, it is still possible to appreciate and perhaps even...