| Line | Despite their many differences of temperament and |
| of literary perspective, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, | |
| Melville, and Whitman shared certain beliefs. Common | |
| to all these writers is their humanistic perspective. | |
| (5) | Its basic premises are that humans are the spiritual |
| center of the universe and that in them alone is the | |
| clue to nature, history, and ultimately the cosmos. | |
| Without denying outright the existence of a deity, this | |
| perspective explains humans and the world in terms | |
| (10) | of humanity. |
| This common perspective is almost always | |
| universalized. It emphasizes the human as universal, | |
| freed from the accidents of time, space, birth, and | |
| talent. Thus, for Emerson, the “American Scholar” | |
| (15) | turns out to be simply “Man Thinking,” while, for |
| Whitman, the “Song of Myself” merges imperceptibly | |
| into a song of all the “children of Adam,” where “every | |
| atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” | |
| Also common to all five writers is the belief | |
| (20) | that self-realization depends on the harmonious |
| reconciliation of two universal psychological | |
| tendencies: first, the self-asserting impulse of | |
| the individual to be responsible only to himself or | |
| herself, and second, the self-transcending impulse | |
| (25) | of the individual to know and become one with |
| that world. These conflicting impulses can be seen | |
| in the democratic ethic. Democracy advocates | |
| individualism, the preservation of the individual's | |
| freedom and self-expression. But the democratic self | |
| (30) | is torn between the duty to self, which is implied by |
| the concept of liberty, and the duty to society, which | |
| is implied by the concepts of equality and fraternity. | |
| A third assumption common to the five writers is | |
| that intuition and imagination offer a surer road to | |
| (35) | truth than does abstract logic or scientific method. It |
| is illustrated by their emphasis upon introspection— | |
| their belief that the clue to external nature is to be | |
| found in the inner world of individual psychology—and | |
| by their interpretation of experience as, in essence, | |
| (40) | symbolic. Both these stresses presume an organic |
| relationship between the self and the cosmos of | |
| which only intuition and imagination can properly take | |
| account. These writers’ faith in the imagination and | |
| in themselves led them to conceive of the writer as a | |
| (45) | seer. |
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