Gura American Transcendentalism

One thing I have learned through post-graduate study is never to read a book without first reading the preface and/or the introduction, which is normally a sort of essay summarizing the totality of the book.  The book itself (at least for my taste) generally goes into so much detail that the point is buried, lost in the author effort to prove that s/he has done sufficient research as to be able to validate the very simple point(s) made in the preface/introduction.  I dispense with a need to validate the author's authority (no pun intended), having full faith in then professor who has chosen the reading for me.

That all said, I'm glad I did.  The preface and introduction here cleared a lot up for me regarding Transcendentalism.  First, I am embarrassed to be this far through seminary and still not quite not know what it is.  Hah!  Joke is on me!  THEY didn't apparently know what it was.  There were even competing (individualistic v. collective) manifestations of it.  Reading the introduction, I thought I was reading One Bird, One Stone which is a collection of stories from the American Zen movement of the post-Beat generation.  Ah, now I get it.  Transecendentalism was the cultural rebirth (or predecessor if you're more linear) of the Beats, the lost Generation, and the Zen's.  They even wrote under obvious pseudonyms and bashed themselves to make their point!  Thank you, now I get it.  Was that so hard?

Chapter 3:  This chapter came off as a bit odd, and although I don't think I was consciously anticipating its content, that content did come as a bit of a surprise.  The chapter focuses on three people, before reading this, I really didn't know of.  Brownson, Ripley and Alcott (Alcott, I had heard of, but through eduction, not so much Unitarianism.)  The chapter was titled Trascendentalism Emerges, but it was much more about these three (and to a lesser degree, Emerson) emerging.  Brownson eventually left the group and here, the accomplishments seem more to be of all three of these people than of the group.  I wonder who was riding on whose coat-tails.  Was the group riding on theirs or were they riding on the groups?  In other words, was their success somehow attributable or related to their membership in the group, or was the membership in the group a non-core factor.  It is hard to tell from this chapter.

Chapter 10:  This chapter came across as Transcendentalism 2.0.  It talked about the formation of the "Free Religious Association" as more or less the natural evolution of Transcendentalism in the face of what had become a stodgy Unitarianism.   This association was formed under premises that seem precursors to our current theological framework.

I did not know about the origins of the Atlantic Monthly, maybe after seminary, I will read it again in a new light.  also, I had never heard of Caroline Dall and was moved by her story.

I didn't quite understand the naming of this chapter.

Chapter 11:  This chapter is mostly about Frothingham, who seems to have found a way to merge Transcendentalist thought back into the imperial Unitarian church.  This was in part due to an evolution in though summarized by one of my favorite quotes:  "The sect of Transcendentalism has disappeared because their light has gone everywhere."  This is an excellent ending.