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Background and General Principles PART 1 BACKGROUND AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES The outstanding symbolic event in the history of Tran- scendentalism is Emerson's resignation from his Boston pastorate in 1832 in order to become a scholar-at-Iarge. Most of the other Transcendentalists were also U nitarian ministers or in some sense lay preachers who came to dis- trust the institutional aspects of religion and were drawn to the literary life. A number of those who began as clergy- men defected like Emerson; most of the rest pursued lit- erary avocations on the side. The writings of laymen like Thoreau, Alcott, and Margaret Fuller also have a religio- aesthetic casto The best-known Transcendentalist periodi- cal was rightly subtitled "A Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion." Though individual Transcen- dentalists differed considerably on particular issues, they shared in common a lofty view of the relationship between religion and art: art (with a capital "A" always understood) 2I 22 Background and General Principles is the product of the religious sentiment, and the religious senti- ment, by its very nature, demands an imaginative expression. Though it was first of all a religious movement, Transcenden- talism, as its first historian said, "was essentially poetical and put its thoughts naturally into song." 1 The purpose of Chap- ter 1 is to show why this was the case, by examining the relation between piety and aesthetics in early nineteenth-century New England, and the way in which the Transcendentalists redefined this relation in the course of their departure from Unitarian- ism.2 Having thus seen their literary aspirations in this larger intellectual context, we outline, in Chapter 2, their views on the nature of literary craftsmanship per se, and show how these too are informed by spiritual considerations. 10. B. Frothingham, Transcendentalism in New England (1876; rpt. New York: Harper, 1959), p. 134. 2 Studies of the relationship between the religious views of Unitarians and Transcendentalists are copious, though until recently they tended to exaggerate both the conservatism of the one and the liberalism of the other and to see a sharper break between the two than was the case. Perry Miller's scholarship is, for the most part, a distinguished example of this position. An excellent short discussion of the factors within Unitarianism which made it first abet and then disown the Transcendentalist move- ment is Clarence H. Faust, "The Background of the Unitarian Opposition to Transcendentalism," Modern Philology, 35 (1938), 297-324. The best recent study of the theological and ecclesiastical relationship between Uni- tarianism and Transcendentalism is William R. Hutchison, The Tran- scendentalist Ministers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959). For two useIul studies oI the aesthetic side of Unitarianism, see Chapter 1, n. 4. Van Wyck Brooks's The Flowering of New England (New York: Dutton, 1936), in its impressionistic manner, also affords some valuable insights into the ways Unitarianism stimulated the literary side of Transcendental- ism. Two works which discuss the relation between religious liberalism and aesthetic developments in America as a whole during this period are William Charvat, The Origins 01 American Critical Thought, I8Io-I835 (Philadelphia: University oI Pennsylvania Press, 1936), and Neil Harris, The Artist in American Society: The Formative Years, I790-I860 (New York: Braziller, 1966), pp. 170-186,300-316. 1 The Emergence Of the Transcendentalist Aesthetic from American Unitarianism Since the Puritan ministers were traditionally the cultural as well as the reIigious Ieaders of their peopIe, it was natural that their successors shouId participate activeIy in the so-called flow- ering of New EngIand Ietters during the early nineteenth cen- tury. The best of the Iiterary and intellectuaI periodicaIs which mark the first stage of this process were thus run and written IargeIy by clergymen: the Monthly Anthology and Boston Re- view (1803-1811), the North American Review (1815-1939), and the Christian Examiner (1824-1869). What is more note- worthy about these experiments is that their clerical supporters were almost exclusively Unitarian ministers. The Orthodox Congregationalists and other evangelical sects had their journals too-for this was the golden age of the religious magazine. But theirs were much more narrowly theoIogical in scope. Conversely, in the area of theoIogy itself, the liberal clergy rareIy approached the best of the evangelicals in depth, rigor, and thoroughness.1 ]ust as ]onathan Edwards was a far more 1 Jerry Wayne Brown's survey of theoIogicaI deveIopments during this this period, The Rise of Biblical Criticism in America, r80o-r870: The New England Scholars (MiddIetown, Conn.: WesIeyan University Press, 1969), contains a lively and informative discussion of controversy between the Unitarians and the Orthodox during this period, but is too uniformly condescending toward the naivetés of both sides. The fact remains that the Unitarians tended to reIy on common sense where the Orthodox had a passion for intellectual precision, essentially because they operated within Background and General PrinciPies profound thinker than Charles Chauncy, his leading liberal opponent during the Great Awakening, so Chauncy's descen- dants were less sophisticated theologians than Samuel Hopkins, Nathaniel Taylor, Lyman Beecher, and Edwards A. Park. Among the Unitarians, only Andrews Norton had any c1aims to real distinction in this respecto Nor were they greatly con- cerned about this fact. Even among themselves, Unitarian di- vines were reputed more for other attainments. One Unitarian minister-historian, for example, after running fondly down the roster of the movement's early leaders, blithely dec1ared that it was "difficult to say, out of hand, just what the Unitarian opinion is on any given matter, or what it is that Unitarians believe in." Indeed, he added, "1 am a Httle impatient that they should ever be judged by their theology, which was so small a fraction of either their religion or their lifel" 2 Among eminent early Unitarians, the two Henry Wares were respected primarily for their kindliness, piety, and devotion to duty; Orville Dewey for his eloquence; F. W. P. Greenwood for the beauty of his style; Buckminster and Channing for all of these. "An at- mosphere of elegant taste pervades the denomination," as O. B. Frothingham says of this periodo "Even w.here occasion calls for polemics the argument is usually conducted after the manner of one more interested in the style than in the dogmas under dis- cussion, and who would gladly be let off from the duty of de- bate." 3 The imputation of lackadaisicalness here is unfair; but a more dogmatic framework of belief. Most of the truly elegant monuments in the history of New England theology are therefore in the tradition of Edwards (as modified by his successors) rather than in that of Chauncy. See Frank Hugh Foster, A Genetic History oi the New England Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1907); and Sydney E. Ahlstrom, "Theology in America," in The ShaPing oi American Religion, ed. James Ward Smith and A. Leland ]ameson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961),1,232-321. 2 Joseph H. Allen, Our Liberal Movement in Theology (Boston: Rob- erts, 1883), p. 30. sO. B. Frothingham, Boston Unitarianism, z82o-z850: A Study oi the Emergence o/ the Transcendentalist Aesthetic 25 the remark is correct in suggesting that what chiefly distin- guished the liberal ministry from its evangelical counterparts was its achievement in such avocations as essay-writing, literary criticism, poetry, and a variety of other secular pursuits from science to philosophy. Channing, for example, won interna- tional fame for his essays on Milton and Napoleon; the younger Ware wrote an epic; his brother William invented a new liter- ary genre, the Biblical novel; Jared Sparks and J. G. Palfrey became two of the leading historians of their day.4 The difference in literary attitudes between liberal and Or- thodox Congregationalism was great enough even to become a point of dispute in the Unitarian controversy. The Unitarians tended to look down u pon Orthodox preachers as dogmatic and narrow-minded ranters, while the Orthodox stigmatized Uni- tarian preaching and writing as hollow displays of elegance which "please delicate tastes and itching ears, but awaken no sleeping conscience." 5 One must naturally beware of taking the language of contro- versy at face value. The Orthodox reviewer who condemned a Lite and Work 01 Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (New York: Putnam, 1890), p. 261. 4 The best general discussion of literary activity among Unitarian minis- ters is Daniel Howe's chapter on "Genteel Letters" in his impressive study, The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, I805-I86I (Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 174-204. For a more partisan discussion, see George Willis Cooke, Unitarianism in America: A History of lts Origin and Development (Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1902 ), pp. 412-435. 5 "Review of Reviews," Panoplist, n.s., 3 (1810), 33. For sorne other com- ments by the Orthodox on Unitarian style see George B. Cheever, "Thoughts on the Unitarian Controversy," Quarterly Christian Spectator, 5 (1833), 85-87, and review of Lives 01 the Twelve Apostles, in Spirit 01 the Pilgrims, 1 (1828), 610. For Unitarians on Orthodox crudity, see George Ticknor, "Dr. Parish's Eulogy," Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, 10 (1811), 423-425; Joseph S. Buckminster, 'Dr. Griffin's Sermon," ibid.,8 (1810), 135; and 'Rhetorical Merits of Orthodox Preaching," Chris- tian Register, 4 (1825), 102. Background and General PrinciPies volume of liberal sermons as "a poisonous infusion in a deli- cious bowl" showed considerable sensitivity to their beauties; the Reverend Leonard Withington, who dismissed Channing as a "nightingale of the moral grove," was himself an essayist and poetaster.6 Nevertheless the controversy did have a deeper basis. Part of the explanation lay in the fact that a higher per- centage of Unitarians than of any other American sect except the High Church Episcopalians were people of sophistication and refinement.
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