April 6th -- Transcendental Biographies -- Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller and Douglass
We know them by their writings and their lives -- their biographies --
All were born into Republican
post-Revolutionary America --
RWE -- 1803 (1882)
MSF -- 1810 (1850)
HDT -- 1817 (1862)
FD -- 1818 (1895)
Three born in eastern Massachusetts; one in Eastern Shore of Maryland
Two lived long lives; two short ones
One a woman; another a Black born into slavery
All somewhat contingently connected with livelihood-producing occupations:
MF and FD as journalists
FD as sailor
RWE as ex-minister -- lecturer
HDT -- occasional laborer -- freeloader extraordinaire
Yet RWE -- "Nothing wholly false, fantastic, can take possession of men who to live & move must plough the ground, sail the sea, have orchards, hear the robin sing, & see the swallow fly." [Journal 4/12/34]
HDThoreau -- on "outdoor" wotk vs. "indoor" work
All somwhat contingently connected to family --
HDT -- bachelor
MF -- late marriage [?]; a daughter
RWE -- two marriages; one child; died at 6
FD -- father a white; mother denied him as a boy --
Views on the necessity of government --
HDT -- "the best government governs not at all"
RWE -- regularly resigning from the body politic -- Ltr. To AJ
about Indians
Views on institutions generally -- RWE on churches [the Divinuty School Address]
RWE and HDT on colleges [Economy" in Walden]
MF on "separate sphers" ["women and children"]
FD on slavery and the Constitution… [4th of July Oration]
Views on history, on the past -- best to
be gotten over … for unloading
RWE -- Opening of "Nature" -- "Ours is a
retrospective age…
All asserters of their individual freedom -- MF (for women) and FD (for Blacks) gave it more of a collective purpose, much more so than did the most radical individualists, RWE and HDT
RWE's "other slaves to combat" dismissal of Abolitionists' call for support
HDT's insistence on his sovereign right to have his afternoons to himself
All part of a Transcendental Age? --
belief in a radically dualistic existence -- the here and
now/Understanding
Reason/Understanding
Freedom/Slavery
Equality/Inequality
RWE at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, April 11, 1834 -- Journal entry --
RWEmerson -- RWE Timeline/Chronology http://www.watershed.winnipeg.mb.ca/Emersonchronology.html
Other RWE links: http://www.watershed.winnipeg.mb.ca/EMERSONlinks.html
HDThoreau -- HDThoreau website: http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwhdt/home.html
Thoreau's Cape Cod: An Interactive Tour -- http://umsa.umd.edu/thoreau/history.html#top
Thoreau Project at UCSbarbara: http://umsa.umd.edu/thoreau/history.html#top
Frederick Douglass -- FD websites: http://www.citycom.com/fddesigns/fdouglinks.html
4th of July Speech text: --http://parallel.park.uga.edu/distance/texts/douglas.html
Margaret Fuller -- http://www.arh.eku.edu/eng/KOPACZ/title.htm
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