Emerson s young wife, Ellen, a mere girl of seventeen when Emerson married her soon after his ordination, died in 1831. The strain of this mourning, combined with that of his separation from his church, affected his own health, and on Christmas Day, 1832, Emerson, urged by his friends to take a sea voyage, sailed from Boston on a small vessel bound for the Mediterranean. He visited Italy, France, and England; and apparently found his greatest satisfaction in the opportunity thus afforded to meet the noted men whom he had long wished to see. It was on this trip that inspired Emerson to become a naturalist after viewing a botanical exhibition in Paris (Emerson: A Student’s History 19).
In 1834, Ralph Waldo Emerson became a resident of Concord. For a year he lived with his mother in the old-fashioned gambrel-roofed house, built as a parsonage for his grandfather, who in his time had served the Concord church. It was this house which subsequently came to be occupied by the novelist Hawthorne, and was given fame in the title of his Mosses from an Old Manse. In 1835, Emerson was married to Miss Lidian Jackson, of Plymouth, and settled in the house, then on the edge of the town. There was, too, a circle of intimate friends about him, some, like Bronson Alcott and Margaret Fuller, attracted thither by the presence of one generally recognized as the ablest prophet of transcendentalism. The young and talented Thoreau, a disciple, although a very independent one, early engaged his interest. In 1842, Hawthorne came to Concord, and for five years dwelt in the Old Manse. Occasionally, too, there appeared fantastic dreamers with queer schemes of social reformation in their heads who sought out Emerson in his retreat as if to consult the oracle at some sacred shrine. Altogether, the little New England town became closely identified with that strong intellectual movement which Emerson, more than any other American writer had inspired (Emerson: A Student’s History 21).
In 1840, Emerson published the Dial, a magazine for which he used to circulate not only his works, but also his entire group of transcendentalist followers. The Dial was conceived as “a medium for the freest expression of thought on the questions which interest earnest minds in every community;” (Emerson: A Student’s History 23).
Emerson’s poetry, as well as his prose works, from the time period of the Dial shows a steady decline in his idealism. “Society and Solitude,” published in 1870, marked the beginning of Emerson’s decline as an essayist (Emerson: A Student’s History 24). Emerson died in Concord on April 27, 1882, at age 78 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow.
Transcendentalism was an influential philosophy that surfaced in the late eighteenth century and lasted well into the nineteenth century. Many experts feel it is incorrect to refer to this movement as a philosophy because it was much more than just a philosophy. It was also a religious, literary, theological and social movement (American Transcendentalism 2).
The first transcendentalist ideas and chief source for its growth later on, was the Critique of Pure Reason, written by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in 1781. According to Emerson’s understanding of Kant, Transcendentalism becomes a union of solipsism, under which the only verifiable reality is thought to be the self, and materialism, under which the only verifiable reality is the quantifiable external world of objects and sense data (American Transcendentalism 4.) It was this piece that inspired Emerson to write Nature, the essay that articulates the true philosophical underpinnings of the movement. It was Kant s work that made Emerson realize that the people and churches of the nineteenth century had become too materialistic. Emerson said of society in his essay, The Transcendentalist; As thinkers, mankind have divided into two sects, Materialists and Idealists; the first class founding on experience, the second on consciousness (American Transcendentalism 4).
Transcendentalism originated as a radical religious movement opposed to the rationalist, conservative institution that Unitarianism had become. Ironically, a great deal of the movement s early followers were or had been Unitarian ministers, including Emerson who came from a long line of Unitarian ministers. The early transcendentalists had felt Unitarianism had become too demanding both spiritually and emotionally. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face, we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe, questioned Emerson (American Transcendentalism 5). He wanted people to be open-minded and idealistic. He believed that people should find inspiration and ecstasy in nature and use that as the way to show tribute and respect to God. Emerson placed extreme emphasis on idealism, and often referred to transcendentalism as idealism, What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842, he wrote in The Transcendentalist, (American Transcendentalism 5).
The emphasis on idealism came about due to the fact that too many people found their knowledge through experience and observation, or empiricism as Unitarianism had taught. Transcendentalism taught that reality existed only in the spiritual world, and that what a person observed n the physical world was only the appearances, or impermanent reflections of the spiritual world. They explained that people learned about the physical world by using empiricism, but to understand the spiritual world and reality, one had to use another kind of power called reason. The transcendentalists defined reason as the independent and intuitive capacity to know what is absolutely true (Clendenning 295).
Emerson still believed the physical world served humanity by providing useful goods and by making human beings aware of beauty. Clendenning said, “Emerson wanted people to learn as much as they possibly through experience and observation as well, but this was secondary to the truths seen through reason. The transcendentalists believed that human beings had to find truth within themselves therefore, they greatly stressed self-reliance and individuality. They claimed society was a necessary evil. They argued that to learn all that is right, a person must ignore custom and social codes and rely on reason. They wanted people to use intuition more than traditional beliefs,” (295).
The transcendentalists assumed a universe divided into two essential parts, the soul and nature. Emerson defined the soul by defining nature: all that is separated from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the NOT ME, that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, NATURE, (American Transcendentalism 6).
A fundamental Transcendentalist principle was the belief in the reliability of the human conscience. This idea was based upon the conviction of the immanence, or indwelling, of God in the soul of the individual. We see God around us because He dwells within us, wrote William Ellery Channing in 1828; the beauty and glory of God s works are revealed to the mind by a light beaming from itself (Clendenning 295).
The Transcendentalism wave died out in the 1860’s, but it has had lasting effects until today. Though its spread wasn’t very far, it made Concord an intellectual capital.