Initial Studies in American LettersBeers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)
History
Initial Studies in American Letters
Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)
American literature -- History and criticism
religious, but intensely radical, who made for himself a large personal
following. The more advanced wing of the Unitarians were called, after
him, "Parkerites." Many of the Unitarian churches refused to
"fellowship" with him; and the large congregation, or audience, which
assembled in Music Hall to hear his sermons was stigmatized as a
"boisterous assembly" which came to hear Parker preach irreligion.
It has been said that, on its philosophical side, New England
transcendentalism was a restatement of idealism. The impulse came from
Germany, from the philosophical writings of Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, and
Schelling, and from the works of Coleridge and Carlyle, who had
domesticated German thought in England. In Channing's _Remarks on a
National Literature_, quoted in our last chapter, the essayist urged
that our scholars should study the authors of France and Germany as one
means of emancipating American letters from a slavish dependence on
British literature. And in fact German literature began, not long
after, to be eagerly studied in New England. Emerson published an
American edition of Carlyle's _Miscellanies_, including his essays on
German writers that had appeared in England between 1822 and 1830. In
1838 Ripley began to publish _Specimens of Foreign Standard
Literature_, which extended to fourteen volumes. In his work of
translating and supplying introductions to the matter selected, he was
helped by Ripley, Margaret Fuller, John S. Dwight, and others who had
more or less connection with the transcendental movement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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