American Romanticism and Transcendentalism: Individuality, Nature, and the Self, Study notes of English

Download American Romanticism and Transcendentalism: Individuality, Nature, and the Self and more Study notes English in PDF only on Docsity! American Romanticism and Transcendentalism 1. What is the difference between individuality and individualism? 2. Similarities between English and American Romanticism Focus on nature, freedom, imagination, nostalgia of the past and interest in supernatural elements 3. Differences between E. and A. Romanticism The idea of America of the land of opportunities and the land of the free, so A.R. focuses on individualism and self-reliance, and not on individuality. American Romantic novels depict/represent a wilderness experience as in the Western films. The most important philosophical movement is Transcendentalism 4. What does it mean “to transcend” according to Transcendentalism? It means “to go beyond” what a person can see, hear, taste, touch or feel 5. When was Transcendentalism born? Around 1836 (later than English Romanticism) in New England, USA 6. Why do Transcendentalists refuse the Calvinist doctrine of predestination? Because they believe in freedom of choice, instead the doctrine of predestination already assigns a specific path/fate to each person when they are born. The only possibility they have is to work as hard as they can and behave responsibly 7. Do they accept the mediation of intellectual and religious authorities? Why? Since they think that everyone has God within themselves, and the relationship between man is God must be personal, they refuse any sort of mediation by intellectual or religious authorities 8. What is the Quaker doctrine of the Inner Light? It states that God is within everybody 9. Why is the connection between man and nature important for Transcendentalists? Because God is immanent in nature and nature gives people the possibility to connect with God with no mediation (pantheism) 10. Is solitude something positive or negative for them? It is positive to better understand ourselves 11. What is self-reliance and why is it something positive for them? It is positive because if you count/rely on yourself, you become independent and optimist 12. Is reason enough to understand oneself and to reach higher spiritual truths? No, it isn’t, because it is limited and we need the power of imagination and intuition to go beyond empirical/factual experience