Anti-Transcendentalism


ROMANTICISM (1800-1855)

Historical context

Genre/Style

  • Short stories, novels, poetry
  • Imagination over reason; intuition over fact
  • The law of the universe was not static but dynamic with change, growth, and development
  • Focused on the fantastic of human experience
  • Writing that can be interpreted two ways: surface and in depth
  • Focus on inner feelings

"Anti"-Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism stressed individualism, intuition, nature, self-reliance.

Anti-Transcendentalism was a literary movement that essentially consisted of only Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville.

They focused on the limitations and potential destructiveness of the human spirit rather than on the possibilities.

Genre/Style

Short stories, novels, and poetry

Major Writers

  • Herman Melville (1819-1891)
    Ranked as one of America's top novelists, but recognized by few in his own time
    Anti-transcendentalist: Billy Budd
    Moby Dick: did not sell – only his friend Hawthorne liked it - now considered America's greatest prose epic