The essential transcendentalists

1: Primary texts

Introduction to the primary texts

Observations on the growth of the mind / Sampson Reed

Preface to Aids to reflection / James Marsh

Amos Bronson Alcott, early journals

"Orphic sayings"

Prefect to Conversations with children

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, introduction

Nature, chapter 1

2: Individual voices

Introduction to individual voices

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The transcendentalist"

"Circles"

Frederic Henry Hedge

"Questionings"

Amos Bronson Alcott, Journal entries, 1837

Margaret Fuller, "flaxman"

"The sacred marriage"

"The great lawsuit"

Henry David Thoreau, "Where I lived, and what I lived for," from Walden

"Civil disobedience"

3: The transcendental heritage

Introduction to the Transcendental heritage

Movements and institutions

Solitary voices

Walt Whitman

Emily Dickinson

Wallace Stevens

The nature writers

Loren Eiseley

Annie Dillard.