Transcendental Club
TheTranscendental Clubwas a group ofNew Englandauthors, philosophers, socialists, politicians and intellectuals of the early-to-mid-19th century which gave rise toTranscendentalism.
Overview
[edit]Frederic Henry Hedge,Ralph Waldo Emerson,George Ripley,andGeorge Putnam(1807–1878; the Unitarian minister inRoxbury) met inCambridge, Massachusettson September 8, 1836, to discuss the formation of a new club; their first official meeting was held eleven days later at Ripley's house inBoston.[1]Other members of the club includedAmos Bronson Alcott,Orestes Brownson,Theodore Parker,[2]Henry David Thoreau,William Henry Channing,James Freeman Clarke,Christopher Pearse Cranch,Convers Francis,Sylvester Judd,Jones Very,andCharles Stearns Wheeler.[3]Female members includedSophia Ripley,Margaret Fuller,Elizabeth Peabody,[4]Ellen Sturgis Hooper,andCaroline Sturgis Tappan.[5]
Originally, the group went by the name "Hedge's Club" because it usually met when Hedge was visiting fromBangor, Maine.[1]The name Transcendental Club was given to the group by the public and not by its participants. The name was coined in a January 1837 review of Emerson's essay "Nature"and was intended disparagingly.[6]James Elliot Cabot,a biographer of Emerson, wrote of the group as "the occasional meetings of a changing body of liberal thinkers, agreeing in nothing but their liberality".[7]Hedge wrote: "There was no club in the strict sense... only occasional meetings of like-minded men and women".[7]It was sometimes referred to by the nickname "the brotherhood of the 'Like-Minded'".[7]
The club was a meeting-place for these young thinkers and an organizing ground for their idealist frustration with the general state of American culture and society at the time, and in particular, the state ofintellectualismatHarvard University.[citation needed]Much of their thinking centered on the shortcomings of theUnitarianchurch.[8]
Many well-known American journals, including theNorth American Reviewand theChristian Examiner,refused to accept submissions from the Transcendental Club for publication.[9]One early review of Emerson's poetry, for example, warned readers that his poems "are not sacred chants; they are hymns to the devil. Not God, but Satan, do they praise, and they can be relished only by devil-worshippers".[10]In October 1839, members of the Transcendental Club had the idea of establishing their own periodical as a platform for their ideals.[11]Initially, Brownson suggested utilizing hisBoston Quarterly Review,though others thought their own magazine was necessary.[12]Hedge, Parker, and Emerson declined the role of editor.[11]Ripley served as the managing editor[13]and Fuller accepted the editor position on October 20, 1839, though she was unable to begin work on the publication until the first week of 1840.[12]The first issue ofThe Dial,with an introduction by Emerson calling it a "Journal in a new spirit", was published in July 1840.[14]
The Transcendental Club likely did not have official meetings after September 1840, though they continued to correspond and attend each other's lectures.[15]The Dialcontinued to be published, though it was never financially stable. In 1843, then business managerElizabeth Peabodycounted only two hundred subscribers and that its income was not covering production costs. It finally ceased publication in April 1844.[16]Emerson's speech/essay "Nature"has been considered a manifesto of Transcendentalist ideas.[8]
References
[edit]- ^abPacker, Barbara L.The Transcendentalists.Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2007: 47.ISBN978-0-8203-2958-1
- ^Buell, Lawrence.Emerson.Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003: 32–33.ISBN0-674-01139-2
- ^Gura, Philip F.American Transcendentalism: A History.New York: Hill and Wang, 2007: 7–8.ISBN0-8090-3477-8
- ^Buell, Lawrence.Emerson.Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003: 32.ISBN0-674-01139-2
- ^Dedmond, Francis B. (1988). "The Letters of Caroline Sturgis to Margaret Fuller".Studies in the American Renaissance:201–251.JSTOR30227564.
- ^Hankins, Barry.The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004: 24.ISBN0-313-31848-4
- ^abcGura, Philip F.American Transcendentalism: A History.New York: Hill and Wang, 2007: 5.ISBN0-8090-3477-8
- ^abHankins, Barry.The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004: 23.ISBN0-313-31848-4
- ^Slater, Abby.In Search of Margaret Fuller.New York: Delacorte Press, 1978: 51.ISBN0-440-03944-4
- ^Kilcup, Karen L.Who Killed American Poetry? From National Obsession to Elite Possession.Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2019: 100.ISBN978-0-472-13155-6
- ^abGura, Philip F.American Transcendentalism: A History.New York: Hill and Wang, 2007: 128.ISBN978-0-8090-3477-2
- ^abVon Mehren, Joan.Minerva and the Muse: A Life of Margaret Fuller.Amherst:University of Massachusetts Press,1994: 120.ISBN1-55849-015-9
- ^Slater, Abby.In Search of Margaret Fuller.New York: Delacorte Press, 1978: 61–62.ISBN0-440-03944-4
- ^Gura, Philip F.American Transcendentalism: A History.New York: Hill and Wang, 2007: 129.ISBN978-0-8090-3477-2
- ^Packer, Barbara L.The Transcendentalists.Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2007: 165.ISBN978-0-8203-2958-1
- ^Gura, Philip F.American Transcendentalism: A History.New York: Hill and Wang, 2007: 130.ISBN978-0-8090-3477-2
Sources
[edit]- Perry Miller,The Transcendentalists(Harvard University Press, 1966).ISBN1-56731-215-2,ISBN0-674-90330-7,ISBN0-674-90333-1.
External links
[edit]- A brief historyof the Club from Transcendentalism Web
- Caroline Sturgis Tappan PapersatHoughton Library,Harvard University — includes correspondence with Emerson, Fuller, etc.