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�Dare to love God without mediator or veil...�
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Assigned Readings
These are the required readings for this unit.
 | �At Morning Blest and Golden-Browed: Unitarians, Transcendentalists and Reformers, 1835�1865� by Daniel Walker Howe |
| �The Divinity School
Address� ** by Ralph Waldo Emerson ** Note: Following this link will take you outside of the UU history website. Use the �back� or �previous� buttons on your browser to navigate back when finished with the reading. |
| �The Transient and Permanent in Christianity� by Theodore Parker |
Questions to Consider
| What values did the Transcendentalists share? |
| What was their critique of classical Unitarianism? |
| What are the continuities between classical Unitarianism and Transcendentalism? |
| How did the Transcendentalists� theology shape their attitudes toward justice issues? |
Explore More
This section includes optional readings for this unit, links to resources on the World Wide Web, and a select bibliography.
Optional Readings
| �From Edwards to Emerson� by Perry Miller In this essay, Miller articulates continuities between the Puritan revivalism of Jonathon Edwards and the Transcendentalist intuitionalism of Emerson. �What is persistent,� he argues, �from Edwards to Emerson is the Puritan�s effort to confront, face to face, the image of a blinding divinity in the physical universe, and to look upon that universe without the intermediacy of ritual, of the Mass and the confessional.� |
| �The Oversoul,� ** by
Ralph Waldo Emerson **Note: Following this link will take you outside of the UU History website. Use �back or �previous� buttons on your browser to navigate back when finished with the reading. |
Links to Internet Resources
The Web is filled with resources on the Transcendentalists. Much of the information is scholarly and appropriate for use in a history course, while some falls under the category of �boosterism.� We have tried to provide you with some of the best links to begin your searches (as of late 1999).
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Click here for brief Encyclopedia Articles on the Transcendentalists. |
| A good starting point for information is the Transcendentalists home page, which provides links to bibliographies, and information on individual Transcendentalists. |
| For Information on Ralph Waldo Emerson, see the Emerson page for on-line texts of most of his essays and poems. |
| The The Margaret Fuller Society maintains a Web page with links to Fuller biographies and bibliographies, as well as on-line texts by Fuller, including the complete Women in the 19th Century (though it is difficult to read because of bad page design). |
| The Thoreau homepage provides links to Thoreau biographies, bibliographies, as well as readable on-line editions of many of his works. |
| The Theodore Parker website provides links to Parker biographies, bibliographies, as well as on-line texts by and about Parker. |
| The Nathaniel Hawthorne Society maintains a website with links to articles and books by and about Hawthorne. |
| Click here for an exhaustive on-line Bibliography of Transcendentalism in general, as well as links to bibliographies for many individual Transcendentalists. |
Bibliography
| Blanchard, Paula. Margaret Fuller: From Transcendentalism to Revolution (New
York: Delta-Seymour Lawrence, 1978). The MFC-required biography. |
| Capper, Charles. Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic Life Vol 1: The Private Years
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1992). A recent biography of Fuller�s early years. |
| Commager, Henry Steele. Theodore Parker (Little, Brown:
Boston,
1946). Commager presents a folksy narrative of Parker�s life. |
| Hutchison, William. The Transcendentalist Ministers: Church Reform in the New
England Renaissance (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1959). Looks at the Transcendentalists as theological and ecclesial reformers, not just as literary figures. |
 | Miller, Perry. Margaret Fuller: American Romantic. A Selection From Her Writings and Correspondence (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1963). |
| Miller, Perry. The Transcendentalists: An Anthology (Cambridge: Harvard
Univ. Press, 1950). This is widely considered the best resource on Transcendentalism. It includes writings by virtually all the Transcendentalists. |
| Richardson, Jr. Robert D. Emerson: Mind on Fire (Berkeley: Univ. of California
Press, 1997). An excellent recent biography of Emerson. |
| Richardson, Jr. Robert D. Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind (Berkeley: Univ. Of California Press, 1986). |
| Rusk, Ralph L. The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York:
Scribner�s, 1949). For fifty years the standard biography. |
| Tharp, Louise Hall. The Peabody Sisters of Salem (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950). For information on Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. |
| West, Cornel. The American Evasion of Philosophy (University of
Wisconsin: Madison, 1990). West assesses Emerson�s legacy within the American philosophical school of pragmatism, as well as its implications for a progressive politics today. |
| Williams, George Hunston. Re-thinking the Unitarian Relationship with Protestantism:
An Examination of the Thought of Frederic Henry Hedge (Boston: Beacon Press, 1949). A good assessment of the thought of Hedge. |
For more bibliographic information, pursue links on the Web, and see the various bibliographic essays in David Robinson�s The Unitarians and the Universalists (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985).