Historical features of transcendentalism as a literary movement in american literature.

O`ZBEKISTON RESPUBLIKASI OLIY VA O`RTA MAXSUS TA`LIM VAZIRLIGI NAMANGAN DAVLAT UNIVERSITETI 5220100-filologiya va tillarni o’qitish (ingliz tili) ta’lim yo’nalishi bitiruvchisi Ikramova Nozimaxon Kotibxon qizining “HISTORICAL FEATURES OF TRANSCENDENTALISM AS A LITERARY MOVEMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE” mavzuidagi BITIRUV MALAKAVIY ISHI Namanagan-2017 HISTORICAL FEATURES OF TRANSCENDENTALISM AS A LITERARY MOVEMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………2 CHAPTER I HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSCENDENTALISM AS A MOVEMENT 1.1 Characteristic features of American Transcendentalism……………… 1.2 Literary characteristics of Transcendentalism…………………………15 CHAPTER II ANALYSES OF LITERARY CARRIER OF TRANSCENDENTALIST WRITERS 2.1 Ralph Waldo Emerson – outstanding American transcendentalist……25 2.2 Main features of literary activity of Emerson…………………………33 CHAPTER III THE IMPORTANCE OF LITERARY ACTIVITY OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU IN AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM 3.1 Henry David Thoreau – one of the pioneer representatives of American transcendentalism………………………………………………………………44 3.2 Place of Thoreau’s works in American transcendentalism…………54 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………64 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………68 INTRODUCTION Actuality of theme Our president proposed declaring the new year 2017 “the Year of Dialogue with the People and Human Interests” The tradition to announce the name of the next year and identify priority areas for further development during the celebration of the Constitution Day dates back to 19971 President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev by his decree has approved the action strategy on priority areas of the country’s development for 2017-2021 The action strategy will be implemented in five stages, and each stage provides for approval of a separate annual state program on the strategy’s implementation in Uzbekistan, according to the decree2 The strategy includes five priority areas, and the first one envisages improvement of state and social construction, strengthening the role of the Uzbek parliament in modernization of the country, development of the institutional framework of the state administration, reduction of state regulation of the economy, strengthening the role of civil society institutions and the media The strategy also envisages reformation of the Uzbek judicial system, it is proposed to strengthen the genuine independence of the judicial power and the guarantee of protection of the rights and freedoms of the country’s citizens, development and liberalization of the Uzbek economy, development of the social sphere Ensuring security, inter-ethnic harmony and religious tolerance, implementation of balanced, mutually beneficial and constructive foreign policy aimed at strengthening the independence and sovereignty of the state, creation of a security belt around Uzbekistan, stability and good neighborly relations, promotion of a positive image of the country abroad is also the most important direction of the strategy The Strategy includes five priority areas: 1 Improving of state and social construction https://www.uzbekistan.org/named-year/archive/8071/ http://en.trend.az/casia/uzbekistan/2718472.html Ensuring the rule of law and reforming the judicial system Development and liberalization of the economy Development of the social sphere Ensuring security, inter-ethnic harmony and religious tolerance, implementation of balanced, mutually beneficial and constructive foreign policy The project has proposed to form a National Commission for the implementation of the Uzbekistan’s Strategy on five priority areas for 2017-2021, and a Commission on the implementation of the selected priority areas The strategy will be implemented in five phases, each of which provides for approval of an annual National program for its implementation Transcendentalism is a very formal word that describes a very simple idea People, men and women equally, have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that "transcends" or goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel This knowledge comes through intuition and imagination not through logic or the senses People can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right A transcendentalist is a person who accepts these ideas not as religious beliefs but as a way of understanding life relationships The individuals most closely associated with this new way of thinking were connected loosely through a group known as the transcendental club, which met in the Boston home of George Ripley Their chief publication was a periodical called "The Dial," edited by Margaret Fuller, a political radical and feminist whose book "Women of the Nineteenth Century" was among the most famous of its time The club had many extraordinary thinkers, but accorded the leadership position to Ralph Waldo Emerson Emerson was a Harvard-educated essayist and lecturer and is recognized as our first truly "American" thinker In his most famous essay, "The American Scholar," he urged Americans to stop looking to Europe for inspiration and imitation and be themselves He believed that people were naturally good and that everyone's potential was limitless He inspired his colleagues to look into themselves, into nature, into art, and through work for answers to life's most perplexing questions His intellectual contributions to the philosophy of transcendentalism inspired a uniquely American idealism and spirit of reform he Transcendental Club was associated with colorful members between 1836 and 1860 Among these were literary figures Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Walt Whitman but the most interesting character by far was Henry David Thoreau, who tried to put transcendentalism into practice A great admirer of Emerson, Thoreau nevertheless was his own man — described variously as strange, gentle, fanatic, selfish, a dreamer, a stubborn individualist For two years Thoreau carried out the most famous experiment in self-reliance when he went to Walden Pond, built a hut, and tried to live self-sufficiently without the trappings or interference of society Later, when he wrote about the simplicity and unity of all things in nature, his faith in humanity, and his sturdy individualism, Thoreau reminded everyone that life is wasted pursuing wealth and following social customs Nature can show that "all good things are wild and free." As a group, the transcendentalists led the celebration of the American experiment as one of individualism and self-reliance They took progressive stands on women's rights, abolition, reform, and education They criticized government, organized religion, laws, social institutions, and creeping industrialization They created an American "state of mind" in which imagination was better than reason, creativity was better than theory, and action was better than contemplation And they had faith that all would be well because humans could transcend limits and reach astonishing heights.3 The basic purpose of qualification paper is to investigate the development American transcendentalism as a literary and philosophical movement Main tasks of the work are considered as following: To learn historical development of Transcendentalism as a movement To overview the characteristic features of American Transcendentalism To expose literary characteristics of Transcendentalism http://www.ushistory.org/us/26f.asp To analyses of literary carrier of Transcendentalist writers To learn the main features of literary activity of Emerson To investigate the importance of literary activity of Henry David Thoreau in American Transcendentalism To learn the place of Thoreau’s works in American transcendentalism The practical value of the work is the fact that the results of the research can be used in the courses of lectures and seminars of English literature and analysis can be useful for practical courses of English language American transcendentalism and works of representatives were object for our research Methods of the work: In this work there were used overview and comparative analyzing methods The work consists of introduction, three chapters, conclusion and bibliography CHAPTER I HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSCENDENTALISM AS A MOVEMENT 1.1 Characteristic features of American Transcendentalism Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States It arose as a reaction to or protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality at the time4 The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was of particular interest Transcendentalism emerged from English and German Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, the skepticism of Hume, and the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism Miller and Versluis regard Emanuel Swedenborg as a pervasive influence on transcendentalism It was also influenced by Hindu texts on philosophy of the mind and spirituality, especially the Upanishads A core belief of transcendentalism is in the inherent goodness of people and nature Adherents believe that society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, and they have faith that people are at their best when truly "selfreliant" and independent Transcendentalism emphasizes subjective intuition over objective empiricism Adherents believe that individuals are capable of generating completely original insights with as little attention and deference to past masters as possible Transcendentalism is closely related to Unitarianism, the dominant religious movement in Boston in the early nineteenth century It started to develop in the aftermath of Unitarianism taking hold at Harvard University, following the elections of Henry Ware Sr as the Hollis Professor of Divinity in 1805, and of John Thorton Kirkland as President in 1810 Rather than as a rejection of Unitarianism, Transcendentalism evolved as an organic consequence of the Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason They https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism were not, however, content with the sobriety, mildness and calm rationalism of Unitarianism Instead, they longed for a more intense spiritual experience Stated in alternate terms, Transcendentalism was not born as a counter-movement to Unitarianism, but, as a parallel movement to the very ideas introduced by the Unitarians Transcendentalism became a coherent movement and a sacred organization with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, on September 8, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals including George Putnam (1807– 78; the Unitarian minister in Roxbury), Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederic Henry Hedge From 1840, the group frequently published in their journal The Dial, along with other venues By the late 1840s, Emerson believed the movement was dying out, and even more so after the death of Margaret Fuller in 1850 "All that can be said," Emerson wrote, "is that she represents an interesting hour and group in American cultivation." There was, however, a second wave of transcendentalists, including Moncure Conway, Octavius Brooks Frothingham,Samuel Longfellow and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn Notably, the transgression of the spirit, most often evoked by the poet's prosaic voice, is said to endow in the reader a sense of purposefulness This is the underlying theme in the majority of transcendentalist essays and papers—all of which are centered on subjects which assert a love for individual expression Though the group was mostly made up of struggling aesthetes, the wealthiest among them was Samuel Gray Ward, who, after a few contributions to The Dial, focused on his banking career Transcendentalists are strong believers in the power of the individual Their beliefs are closely linked with those of the Romantics, but differ by an attempt to embrace or, at least, to not oppose the empiricism of science Transcendentalists desire to ground their religion and philosophy in principles not based on, or falsifiable by, physical experience, but deriving from the inner spiritual or mental essence of the human ] Transcendentalism merged English and German Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, and the skepticism of Hume, and the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel interpreting Kant's a Kant (and priori of German categories as Idealism more a priori generally), knowledge Early transcendentalists were largely unacquainted with German philosophy in the original and relied primarily on the writings ofThomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Cousin, Germaine de Staël, and other English and French commentators for their knowledge of it The transcendental movement can be described as an American outgrowth of English Romanticism Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—corrupt the purity of the individual They have faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent It is only from such real individuals that true community can form Even with this necessary individuality, transcendentalists also believe that all people possess a piece of the "Over-soul" (God) Because the Over-soul is one, this unites all people as one being5 Transcendentalism has been influenced by Indian religions Thoreau in Walden spoke of the Transcendentalists' debt to Indian religions directly: In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water-jug I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges Emerson, Ralph Waldo "The Over-Soul" American Transcendentalism Web Retrieved 13 July 2015 Transcendentalists differ in their interpretations of the practical aims of will Some adherents link it with utopian social change; Brownson, for example, connected it with early socialism, but others consider it an exclusively individualist and idealist project Emerson believed the latter; in his 1842 lecture "The Transcendentalist", he suggested that the goal of a purely transcendental outlook on life was impossible to attain in practice: You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a transcendental party; that there is no pure transcendentalist; that we know of no one but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands .Shall we say, then, that transcendentalism is the Saturnalia or excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish Transcendentalism is, in many aspects, the first notable American intellectual movement It has inspired succeeding generations of American intellectuals, as well as some literary movements Transcendentalism influenced the growing movement of "Mental Sciences" of the mid-19th century, which would later become known as the New Thought movement New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father Emma Curtis Hopkins "the teacher of teachers", Ernest Holmes, founder of Religious Science, the Fillmores, founders of Unity, andMalinda Cramer and Nona L Brooks, the founders of Divine Science, were all greatly influenced by Transcendentalism6 INTA New Thought History Chart, Websyte 10 as a higher and independent power, from which all its power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." Although Thoreau believed resistance to unjustly exercised authority could be both violent (exemplified in his support for John Brown) and nonviolent (his own example of tax resistance displayed in Resistance to Civil Government), he regarded pacifist nonresistance as temptation to passivity, writing: "Let not our Peace be proclaimed by the rust on our swords, or our inability to draw them from their scabbards; but let her at least have so much work on her hands as to keep those swords bright and sharp." Furthermore, in a formal lyceum debate in 1841, he debated the subject "Is it ever proper to offer forcible resistance?", arguing the affirmative Likewise, his condemnation of the Mexican–American War did not stem from pacifism, but rather because he considered Mexico "unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army" as a means to expand the slave territory Thoreau also favored bioregionalism, the protection of animals and wild areas, free trade, and taxation for schools and highways He disapproved of the subjugation of Native Americans, utopianism, consumerism, philistinism, mass slavery, entertainment, technological and frivolous applications of technology Thoreau was influenced by Indian spiritual thought In Walden, there are many overt references to the sacred texts of India For example, in the first chapter ("Economy"), he writes: "How much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the East!" American Philosophy: An Encyclopedia classes him as one of several figures who "took a more pantheist orpandeist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world", also a characteristic of Hinduism Furthermore, in "The Pond in Winter", he equates Walden Pond with the sacred Ganges river, writing: In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem 58 puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges Thoreau was aware his Ganges imagery could have been factual He wrote about ice harvesting at Walden Pond And he knew that New England's ice merchantswere shipping ice to foreign ports, including Calcutta Additionally, Thoreau followed various Hindu customs, including following a diet of rice ("It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India."), flute playing (reminiscent of the favorite musical pastime of Krishna), and yoga In an 1849 letter to his friend H.G.O Blake, he wrote about yoga and its meaning to him: Free in this world as the birds in the air, disengaged from every kind of chains, those who practice yoga gather in Brahma the certain fruits of their works Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice the yoga faithfully The yogi, absorbed in contemplation, contributes in his degree to creation; he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and united to the nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts as animating original matter To some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a yogi Thoreau read contemporary works in the new science of biology, including the works of Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, and Asa Gray (Charles Darwin's staunchest American ally) Thoreau was deeply influenced by Humboldt, especially his work Kosmos22 22 Wulf, Andrea The Invention of Nature: Alexander Humboldt's New World New York: Alfred A Knopf 2015, p 250 59 In 1859, Thoreau purchased and read Darwin's On the Origin of Species Unlike many natural historians at the time, includingLouis Agassiz who publicly opposed Darwinism in favor of a static view of nature, Thoreau was immediately enthusiastic about the theory of evolution by natural selection and endorsed it, stating: The development theory implies a greater vital force in Nature, because it is more flexible and accommodating, and equivalent to a sort of constant new creation (A quote from On the Origin of Species follows this sentence.)] Thoreau's careful observations and devastating conclusions have rippled into time, becoming stronger as the weaknesses Thoreau noted have become more pronounced [ ] Events that seem to be completely unrelated to his stay at Walden Pond have been influenced by it, including the national park system, the British labor movement, the creation of India, the civil rights movement, the hippie revolution, the environmental movement, and the wilderness movement Today, Thoreau's words are quoted with feeling by liberals, socialists, anarchists, libertarians, and conservatives alike Thoreau's political writings had little impact during his lifetime, as "his contemporaries did not see him as a theorist or as a radical, viewing him instead as a naturalist They either dismissed or ignored his political essays, including Civil Disobedience The only two complete books (as opposed to essays) published in his lifetime, Walden and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), both dealt with nature, in which he loved to wander." His obituary was lumped in with others rather than as a separate article in an 1862 yearbook Nevertheless, Thoreau's writings went on to influence many public figures Political leaders and reformers like Mohandas Gandhi, U.S President John F Kennedy, American civil rights activistMartin Luther King, Jr., U.S Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas, and Russian author Leo Tolstoy all spoke of being strongly affected by Thoreau's work, particularly Civil Disobedience, as did "right-wing theorist Frank 60 Chodorov devoted an entire issue of his monthly,Analysis, to an appreciation of Thoreau." Thoreau also influenced many artists and authors including Edward Abbey, Willa Cather, Marcel Proust, William Butler Yeats, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway,Upton Sinclair, E B White, Lewis Mumford, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Posey, and Gustav Stickley Thoreau also influenced naturalists like John Burroughs, John Muir, E O Wilson, Edwin Way Teale, Joseph Wood Krutch, B F Skinner, David Brower, and Loren Eiseley, whom Publishers Weekly called "the modern Thoreau" English writer Henry Stephens Salt wrote a biography of Thoreau in 1890, which popularized Thoreau's ideas in Britain: George Bernard Shaw,Edward Carpenter, and Robert Blatchford were among those who became Thoreau enthusiasts as a result of Salt's advocacy Mohandas Gandhi first readWalden in 1906 while working as a civil rights activist in Johannesburg, South Africa He first read Civil Disobedience "while he sat in a South African prison for the crime of nonviolently protesting discrimination against the Indian population in the Transvaal The essay galvanized Gandhi, who wrote and published a synopsis of Thoreau's argument, calling its 'incisive logic [ ] unanswerable' and referring to Thoreau as 'one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced'." He told American reporter Webb Miller, "[Thoreau's] ideas influenced me greatly I adopted some of them and recommended the study of Thoreau to all of my friends who were helping me in the cause of Indian Independence Why I actually took the name of my movement from Thoreau's essay 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience', written about 80 years ago." Martin Luther King, Jr noted in his autobiography that his first encounter with the idea of nonviolent resistance was reading "On Civil Disobedience" in 1944 while attending Morehouse College He wrote in his autobiography that it was, "Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance 61 Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice."0] American psychologist B F Skinner wrote that he carried a copy of Thoreau's Walden with him in his youth and, in 1945, wrote Walden Two, a fictional utopia about 1,000 members of a community living together inspired by the life of Thoreau Thoreau and his fellow Transcendentalists from Concord were a major inspiration of the composer Charles Ives The 4th movement of the Concord Sonata for piano (with a part for flute, Thoreau's instrument) is a character picture and he also set Thoreau's words23 In the early 1960s Allan Sherman referred to Thoreau in his song parody "Here's To Crabgrass" about the suburban housing boom of that era with the line "Come let us go there and live like Thoreau there." Actor Ron Thompson did a dramatic portrayal of Henry David Thoreau on the 1976 NBC television series The Rebels Thoreau's ideas have impacted and resonated with various strains in the anarchist movement, with Emma Goldman referring to him as "the greatest American anarchist" Green anarchism and anarcho-primitivism in particular have both derived inspiration and ecological points-of-view from the writings of Thoreau John Zerzan included Thoreau's text "Excursions" (1863) in his edited compilation of works in the anarcho-primitivist tradition titled Against civilization: 23 Burkholder, James Peter Charles Ives and His World Princeton University Press, 1996 (pp 50–51) 62 Readings and reflections Additionally, Murray Rothbard, the founder of anarchocapitalism, has opined that Thoreau was one of the "great intellectual heroes" of his movement Thoreau was also an important influence on late-19th- century anarchist naturism Globally, Thoreau's concepts also held importance within individualist circles in Spain, France, and Portugal.] Although his writings would receive widespread acclaim, Thoreau's ideas were not universally applauded Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson judged Thoreau's endorsement of living alone and apart from modern society in natural simplicity to be a mark of "unmanly" effeminacy and "womanish solitude", while deeming him a self-indulgent "skulker" Nathaniel Hawthorne had mixed feelings about Thoreau He noted that "He is a keen and delicate observer of nature,—a genuine observer,—which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness." On the other hand, he also wrote that Thoreau "repudiated all regular modes of getting a living, and seems inclined to lead a sort of Indian life among civilized men" In a similar vein, poet John Greenleaf Whittier detested what he deemed to be the "wicked" and "heathenish" message of Walden, claiming that Thoreau wanted man to "lower himself to the level of a woodchuck and walk on four legs".] In response to such criticisms, English novelist George Eliot, writing for the Westminster Review, characterized such critics as uninspired and narrowminded: People—very wise in their own eyes—who would have every man's life ordered according to a particular pattern, and who are intolerant of every existence the utility of which is not palpable to them, may pooh-pooh Mr Thoreau and this episode in his history, as unpractical and dreamy Thoreau himself also responded to the criticism in a paragraph of his work Walden by illustrating the irrelevance of their inquiries: 63 I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained [ ] Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; [ ] I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may good service to him whom it fits Recent criticism has accused Thoreau of hypocrisy, misanthropy, and being sanctimonious, based on his writings in Walden, although this criticism has been perceived as highly selective CONCLUSION American transcendentalism is essentially a kind of practice by which the world of facts and the categories of common sense are temporarily exchanged for the world of ideas and the categories of imagination The point of this exchange is to make life better by lifting us above the conflicts and struggles that weigh on our souls As these chains fall away, our souls rise to heightened experiences of freedom and union with the good Emerson and Thoreau are the two most significant nineteenth century proponents of American transcendentalism Looking at the world through common sense categories, such as time, space, and causation, yields hard and fast limits that can hurt us Causation seems to make 64 certain outcomes unavoidable whether we like them or not Space separates us from the ones we love and the places we would rather be Not to be outdone, time brings all good things to an end and converts the living into the dead The categories of imagination free us from these detestable limits We can imagine a world in which physical space is no more than an idea, enabling us to move from place to place at the speed of our thoughts Emanation and fulguration make congenial substitutes for causation, because they generate only what is true, beautiful, and good Not even time presents a problem for imagination, since we can readily view all things from the standpoint of eternity Most philosophers start with theories, searching for ways in which to practice what they preach only if they are serious about their philosophies The transcendentalists reversed this procedure They began with practices and then attempted to establish them on solid theoretical foundations Yet these practices all involved spurning certain facts in favor of ideas, leading them invariably to theories that are inconsistent and vague Their honesty would not allow them to spurn all facts, so they were ever at work reshaping intractable facts to fit their theories or stretching the fabric of their views to cover uncooperative facts Unwitting victims of their own scruples, they found themselves hating facts that did not fit the mold and being frustrated with theories they knew failed to capture all the facts The final victim was transcendentalism itself Critics, eager to wield the sword of criticism, overlooked the life-enhancing practices at the core of transcendentalism, concentrating their efforts on the many chinks and thin plates in its theoretical armor Their blades penetrated easily, and they quickly pronounced their victim hopelessly baffling Even friendly critics felt obliged to begin their articles with the proviso that transcendentalism is not easily articulated The transcendentalists were suspended between imagination and common sense If they had been consistent empiricists or materialists, their theories might have been securely founded on facts Had they been fully fledged idealists or rationalists, their theories might have been firmly fixed on logical relations In 65 reality, they were neither consistent nor fully fledged theorists Emerson complained of a see-saw in his voice Yet what is most valuable in the legacy of transcendentalism is not theoretical and is not in need of theoretical backing It is the practices by which the transcendentalists managed, at least occasionally, to remake the world in the image of what they loved Although he denied he was a transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson was rightly viewed by his peers and is rightly viewed by contemporary scholars as the primary philosophical exponent of American transcendentalism, followed by Henry David Thoreau Emerson distinguished at least three practices by which facts may be exchanged for ideas The first enacts a form of idealism Instead of seeing the world as an independent power that may lay waste to our purposes and plans, we can view it as a display of images or pictures created by us, rendering it harmless and even benevolent Secondly, we can focus on moral actions and rejoice in their goodness The third practice distinguished by Emerson is perhaps the one for which transcendentalism is best known It is that of contemplating beauty These practices come naturally to many of us We many not connect them to Emerson, his contemporaries, or the period in American intellectual history roughly between the publication of Emerson’s “Nature” in 1836 and Thoreau’s death in 1862─when transcendentalism flourished as a movement; but inasmuch as we seek to improve our lives by turning away from facts and embracing ideas, we are transcendentalists The word “transcendental” brings to mind Kant and the German philosophers he influenced, but German thinkers were not the only ones to leave their mark on American transcendentalism Emerson was a great admirer of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, both of whom he met when he traveled to Europe in 1832 Their romanticism was intoxicating to him, and he seems to have passed some of that intoxication to his friend Thoreau The British romantics shared the same love of beauty, morality, and God that animated both Kant and the American transcendentalists, but the romantics had developed a 66 unique perspective on our relation to those realities This perspective provided one of the central features of American transcendentalism The British romantics saw tremendous beauty and goodness in the world At the same time, they saw that all of that goodness and beauty is flawed Human beings often embody great virtues, but this is not always so Sometimes their behavior is monstrous in its selfishness and cruelty The sky, the meadow, and the rose are breathtakingly beautiful, but as time passes their beauty fades This double vision of the romantics, although it did not betray any facts, nevertheless placed them in the uncomfortable position of both hating and loving the world To get out of their predicament, the romantics made a bold move They set their sights on the perfect, which for them could exist only beyond the awful limits of the world Yet they could not forget that they were, as flesh and blood, inextricably tied to those very limits Nor could they forget that it was those very limits that provided the precious glimpses of beauty and goodness, however degraded, that they cherished This was a great tragedy, they decided, and it was made even greater by the fact that it was inevitable If you live in this world and you have enough humanity to love the good and the beautiful, you will be constantly assailed by the pain of falling short of those ideals Yet, they suggested, the more the tragedy of life appeared to us in all of its inevitability and pain, the more beautiful life would be in our eyes Had they embraced this perspective at face value, the transcendentalists might have been cheered As a sequence of random events, some good and others bad, life is arguably meaningless and not worth living But view it as a tragedy and life takes on a marvelous aesthetic unity Anguish and tears become literary realities, beautiful in their significance and in the timeless moral lessons they convey But the transcendentalists were too pragmatic to embrace such an intellectual view of life The world was too much with them, and although they never tired of translating facts into ideas, they could not shake the sense that facts were somehow more real Instead of cheering them up, their contact with romanticism ultimately saddened them They fell in love with the perfect like good 67 romantics, but they could find little beauty in the countless misfortunes that befell them They felt betrayed by life In Emerson, this feeling expressed itself in the form of sheer disbelief at the terrible things that happened to him In Thoreau, it created a thin layer of bitterness and resentment that never dissipated The influence of the British romantics shaped American transcendentalism at least as much and probably more than that of Kant’s transcendental philosophy Their influence contributed a longing for the perfect, one of the central features of transcendentalism in America The other side of this contribution, equally central, was a treacherous undercurrent of disappointment and sadness BIBLIOGRAPHY Mirziyoyev SH.M Tanqidiy tahlil, qatiy tartib-intizom va shahsiy javobgarlik – har bir rahbar faoliyatining kundalik qoidasi bo’lishi lozim T.: O’zbekiston, 2017 B.145 Karimov I.A O’zbekiston mustaqillikka erishish ostonasida – T.: O’zbekiston, 2011.- 442 b Karimov I.A Jahon moliyaviy–iqtisodiy inqirozi, O’zbekiston sharoitida uni bartaraf etishning yo’llari va choralari – T.: O’zbekiston, 2009.- 56 b 68 Karimov I.A Mamlakatimizda demokratik islohotlarni yanada chuqurlashtirish va fuqarolik jamiyatini rivojlantirish kontse’tsiyasi – T.: O’zbekiston, 2010.- 56 b Karimov I.A O’zbekiston Res’ublikasi mustaqilligining 19 yilliga bag’ishlangan tantanali marosimda so’zi, “O’zbekiston ovozi” gazetasi, 2010 yil 1sentyabr’ Karimov I.A “Mamlakatmizni modernizatsiya qilish yo’lini izchil davom – taraqqiyotimizning muhim omilidir”, “Ishonch” gazetasi, 2010 yil dekabar’ Karimov I.A “Barcha reja va das turlarimiz vatanimiz taraqqi yotini yuksaltirish, xalqimiz farovonligini oshirishga xizmat qiladi”, “Xalq so’zi” gazetasi, 2011 yil 22 yanvar Karimov I.A O’zbekiston XXI asr bo’sag’asida: xavfsizlikka tahdid, barqarorlik shartlari va taraqqiyot kafolatlari –T.: “O’zbekiston”, 1998 - 35 b Emerson, R W Emerson’s Complete Works 12 Vols Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1883-93 10 Emerson, R W Emerson in His Journals Joel Porte, Ed Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982 11 Gougeon, L Virtue’s Hero: Emerson, Antislavery, and Reform Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1990 12 Gray, H D Emerson: A Statement of New England Transcendentalism as Expressed in the Philosophy of its Chief Exponent New York: Frederick Ungar, 1970 13 McAleer, J J Ralph Waldo Emerson: Days of Encounter Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1984 14 Packer, B L The Transcendentalists Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2007 15 Richardson, R D Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986 16 Thoreau, H D The Best of Thoreau’s Journals Carl Bode, Ed Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971 69 17 Thoreau, H D Walden Michael Meyer, Ed London: Macmillan, 1995 18 Thoreau, H D A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Carl Hovde, Ed Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980 19 Myerson, Joel, Ed Transcendentalism: A Reader New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 20 A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (Boston & Cambridge: James Munroe, 1849; London: Walter Scott, 1889) 21 Walden; or, Life in the Woods (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1854); republished as Walden(Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1862; Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1884) 22 Excursions (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863) 23 The Maine Woods (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1864) 24 Cape Cod (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1865; London: Sampson Low, 1865) 25 A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866) 26 Early Spring in Massachusetts, edited by H G O Blake (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1881) 27 Summer: From the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Blake (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1884; London: Unwin, 1884) 28 Winter: From the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Blake (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1888) 29 Autumn: From the Journal of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Blake (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1892) 30 Miscellanies (Boston & New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1894) 31 Poems of Nature, edited by H S Salt and F B Sanborn (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin / London: John Lane, Bodley Head, 1895) 32 The Service, edited by Sanborn (Boston: Charles E Goodspeed, 1902) 33 The First and Last Journeys of Thoreau, volumes, edited by Sanborn (Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1905) 34 Sir Walter Raleigh (Boston: Bibliophile Society, 1905) 70 35 Ljunquist, Kent (2002), "The poet as critic", in Hayes, Kevin J, The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Cambridge University Press, p 15, ISBN 0-521-79727-6 36 https://www.britannica.com/art/American-literature/The-naturalists 37 "Cousin, Victor (1782–1867)" Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism Infobase Publishing, 2014 38 Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1959) Early Lectures 1833–36 Stephen Whicher, ed Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press ISBN 978-0-674-22150 39 Emerson, Ralph Waldo "The Over-Soul" American Transcendentalism Web Retrieved 13 July 2015 40 Lowance, Mason (2000) Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader Penguin Classics pp 301–02 ISBN 0-14-043758-4 41 Frost, Robert (1968) Letter to Wade Van Dore, June 24, 1922, in Twentieth Century Interpretations of Walden Richard Ruland, ed Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall p LCCN 68 14480 42 Cheever, Susan (2006) American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work Detroit: Thorndike Press Large print edition p 241 ISBN 0-7862-9521-X 43 Wulf, Andrea The Invention of Nature: Alexander Humboldt's New World New York: Alfred A Knopf 2015, p 250 44 Burkholder, James Peter Charles Ives and His World Princeton University Press, 1996 (pp 50–51) INTERNET SOURCES https://www.uzbekistan.org/named-year/archive/8071/ http://en.trend.az/casia/uzbekistan/2718472.html http://www.ushistory.org/us/26f.asp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism INTA New Thought History Chart, Websyte 71 http://www.iep.utm.edu/am-trans/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau http://www.thoreausociety.org/life-legacy 72 ... industrialization They created an American "state of mind" in which imagination was better than reason, creativity was better than theory, and action was better than contemplation And they had faith... poems by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Julia Caroline Dorr, Jean Ingelow, Lucy Larcom, Jones Very, as well as Thoreau and several others The anthology was originally prepared as early as the fall of 1871... To learn the main features of literary activity of Emerson To investigate the importance of literary activity of Henry David Thoreau in American Transcendentalism To learn the place of Thoreau’s