November 13

Walden Poster

1. Vocabulary for Friday--last 10 words from list
2. Finish Dead Poets
3. Finish notes on Dead Poets
        (1 page of examples from the film illustrating that the ideas in the film follow the ideas of
         Transcendentalist thought.) Transcendentalists
4. Read the following poem by dead poet par excellence, Walt Whitman:
"When I heard the learned astronomer"

Common traits of American Transcendentalists

As defined in "The Transcendentalist" by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

1. Respect for intuitions
2. Withdrawal from labor and competition
3. Pursuit of a critical, solitary lifestyle
4. Consciousness of the disproportion between a person's faculties and the work provided for them.
5. Repel influences
6. Shun general society
7. An appreciation for nature, specifically nature's symbolism
8. Life in rural settings
9. Work and play in solitude
10. Have a passion for the extraordinary
11. Not good for citizens or members of society
    • Unwilling to bear their part of public and private burdens
12. Childlike; joyous, affectionate, susceptible, more than average wish to be loved
13. Make extreme demands on human nature
14. Disappointed in humanity
15. Sociable
16. Lack private ends to their means
17. United with every trait and talent of beauty and power
18. Idealistic
19. Admits the unreliability of the senses
20. Respects the government only so far as it reinforces the law of their minds
21. Reality originates from an "unknown centre" inside of themselves
22. Accepts spiritual doctrine
23. Do not share in public religious rites, enterprises of education, missions foreign or domestic, activism, or voting
24. Essentially dead or paralyzed
    • Even though their participation in society is out of character, they choose to participate as dissidents
25. Reject routine, because there is not much virtue in it
26. Constantly waiting for a high command
27. Lovers and worshippers of society
28. Disdain for organized education

"Oh me oh life, what good among these. What good are these? That you are here, and may contribute a verse"--Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's poem  "When I heard the learned astronomy"