Skip to main content

Tiny House Living and Transcendentalism


This week's class will explore transcendentalism, Emerson, and Thoreau. But like most of the topics we've studied so far, we can find modern connections.

Transcendentalism was a religious movement that grew out of Romanticism between 1836-1860. We can define it as a spiritual, philosophical, literary movement with ties to the Unitarian Church around Boston.

Like Romanticism, this movement emphasized individual rights and inspiration, the latter, especially within nature. Transcendentalists believed that individuals can discover truth for themselves, rather than learning it through tradition.

It differs from Romanticism in that it focused on God. Transcendentalists believed that God was everywhere and could be discovered through intuition and that all people have a divine inner light. By accessing this light or intuition, they can transcend the ordinary and experience the spiritual.


The five tenets of Transcendentalism:
1. Nonconformity
2. Self-Reliance
3. Importance of Nature (finding God or enlightenment in nature)
4. Favoring Intuition over Reason
5. Simplified Life





               

For those of you interested in checking out the tiny houses inspired by the legacy of Thoreau and Emerson, here's a link to HGTV's Tiny House Movement gallery.

How else do you see the influences of Transcendentalism in modern culture?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flannery O'Connor Analysis on "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

               Grace and Theology: A Necessary Discussion of Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Heather Chandler             D.H. Lawrence asserts in his Studies in Classic American Literature, that “the proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it” (8). While this approach is helpful and necessary in many works of literature, it is both misleading and damaging to do so with Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” A popular new way of interpreting her work is to look through a secular lens, but separating her Catholic beliefs and allusions reduces her work to a simplistic ambiguous tale, molded to suit our own postmodern desires; and, this is essentially as misguided as looking at Da Vinci’s Last Supper and refusing to note its religious connotations. Instead, we should look at the larger picture,...
Post a Comment
Read more

October 10th Review

History was pretty light this week, with all of our focus on Edgar Allan Poe's works, the movie posters, themes, and our own Faux Poes. But, if you missed class today or want a refresher on the Lousiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson's "unconstitutional" move to expand the U.S., and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, you can find those topics on the Crash Course video I posted yesterday. As far as homework for this week, I'll make your list. :) 1. Finish your Faux Poe poem and type it up. Bring in a copy to class next week. We are going to put these with our movie posters for our Parent's Night in November. 2. Finish your Movie Poster, if you didn't finish it in class. Be sure to bring it into class next week. We are going to "frame" it and attach your poems. (See above) 3. Write a 1-2 page paper on the THEME of one of Poe's works we have read in class. Remember, themes are not generic fortune-cookie responses. No "What comes around goes ...
Post a Comment
Read more