Text+Analysis+of+Non-Fiction+Philosophy+and+Poetry+Transcendentalism+Romanticism

Learning Objective: Text-Analysis of Non-Fiction/Philosophy and Poetry (Transcendentalism/Romanticism)
Students will be able to:
 * Become familiar with important aspects and excerpts of writings from selected American Transcendentalists and Romantics
 * Understand and analyze syntax, detail, diction and author purpose in writing
 * Appreciate and recognize various literary devices/elements and theme
 * Identify elements of transcendentalism such as the connection between people and nature, an individual's ability to think freely, and the importance of spiritual self-reliance to the individual found in the works of American Transcendentalists.
 * Articulate the predominant perspectives of these writers, to respond to them critically, and to compare and contrast one to another
 * Place American Transcendentalists in an historical perspective, seeing how each earlier writer influenced those who followed (within the movement and beyond)
 * Identify the elements of transcendentalism as represented in present-day genres (comic strips, lyrics, and music).
 * Investigate the representation of transcendentalist thought in social commentaries
 * Develop their own views on the subjects of individualism, nature, and passive resistance

Ralph Waldo Emerson > Peruse the following works by Emerson:
 * The American Scholar: American Scholar--Emerson [questions have been embedded into the text to guide your reading]
 * Self-Reliance: Self-Reliance--Emerson SELF-RELIANCE DISCUSSION BOARD
 * Nature (especially)
 * The Poet
 * Each and All
 * Merlin
 * Brahma

Henry David Thoreau
 * Resistance to Civil Government
 * Walden, or Life in the Woods
 * 1. Economy
 * 2. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
 * 5. Solitude
 * 17. Spring
 * 18. Conclusion

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 * A Psalm of Life

Walt Whitman
 * Preface to //Leaves of Grass//
 * Inscriptions
 * One's Self I Sing
 * Shut Not Your Doors
 * Song of Myself
 * Children of Adam
 * Spontaneous Me
 * Facing West from California's Shores
 * Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
 * I Hear America Singing
 * I Hear America Singing (text)
 * I Sit and Look Out
 * I Sit and Look Out (text)
 * Memories of President Lincoln
 * When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
 * When Lilacs Last in the Courtyard Bloom'd (text)
 * Oh Captain! My Captain
 * Oh Captain! My Captain! (text)