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1、Abstract: American famous writer, Louisa May Alcotts novel Little Women fully reflects the transcendental ideas. This novel based on the American Civil War contains complex cultural contexts and thus, can be read from many perspectives. This thesis attempts to read this novel from the perspective of
2、 Transcendentalism, and try to tap the Transcendentalism embodied in thought, in order to broaden peoples perspective of reading the novel. Transcendentalism promotes the unity of people, God, the spirit of natural, to emphasize the spirit of self and self-reliance. These ideas are reflected in the
3、March sisters growing up and character. March sisters have different personalities and talents, but they focus on their own spirit improvement and strongly maintain the self-reliance and self-independent spirit. Transcendentalism gave the charisma to the March sisters and made the novel won the read
4、ers favorite. In addition, Alcott extended Transcendentalism to women reality in Little Women, and it increases the readability of the novel.Keywords: Little Women; Transcendentalism; Individualism; Self-reliance摘要：美国著名女作家露易莎梅奥尔科特的长篇小说充分体现了超验主义思想.这部以美国南北战争为背景的小说包含着复杂的文化情境，可以从多重视角来解读。 本文试图从超验主义视角解读这篇
5、小说，并尽力挖掘该小说中体现的超验主义思想，以拓宽人们阅读该小说的视野。超验主义宣扬人、神、自然的精神统一，强调精神、自我和自助。这些思想都在马奇姐妹的性格和成长过程中有所体现。马奇姐妹具有不同的性格和才华，但都注重自己的精神提高和完善，并极力保持自助和自我独立的精神。超验主义赋予了马奇姐妹人格魅力，使小说赢得了读者的喜爱。此外奥尔科特在小说中把超验主义延伸到女性现实，这也增加了小说的可读性。关键词：小妇人；超验主义；个人主义；自助 毕业设计（论文）原创性声明和使用授权说明原创性声明本人郑重承诺：所呈交的毕业设计（论文），是我个人在指导教师的指导下进行的研究工作及取得的成果。尽我所知，除文中特
6、别加以标注和致谢的地方外，不包含其他人或组织已经发表或公布过的研究成果，也不包含我为获得 及其它教育机构的学位或学历而使用过的材料。对本研究提供过帮助和做出过贡献的个人或集体，均已在文中作了明确的说明并表示了谢意。作 者 签 名： 日 期： 指导教师签名： 日期： 使用授权说明本人完全了解 大学关于收集、保存、使用毕业设计（论文）的规定，即：按照学校要求提交毕业设计（论文）的印刷本和电子版本；学校有权保存毕业设计（论文）的印刷本和电子版，并提供目录检索与阅览服务；学校可以采用影印、缩印、数字化或其它复制手段保存论文；在不以赢利为目的前提下，学校可以公布论文的部分或全部内容。作者签名： 日 期：
7、 学位论文原创性声明本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是本人在导师的指导下独立进行研究所取得的研究成果。除了文中特别加以标注引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写的成果作品。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到本声明的法律后果由本人承担。作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日学位论文版权使用授权书本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权 大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学
8、位论文。涉密论文按学校规定处理。作者签名：日期： 年 月 日导师签名： 日期： 年 月 日Thesis Statement: This paper discusses the importance of the Transcendentalism in Little Women and its influence on the minds of the four March daughters.Outline:.The Development of TranscendentalismA. The Connotation of TranscendentalismB. Some Important
9、 Comments on Transcendentalism.Transcendentalism in Little WomenA. A Brief Look at the Plot of the Little WomenB. The Reflection of Transcendentalism through the Characters in Little Women1. Tomboyish Jo2. Beautiful Meg3. Fragile Beth 4. Romantic Amy5. John Brooke6. Laurence boy.The Influence of Tra
10、nscendentalism in Little Women on the Future Literature.ConclusionA Transcendental Reading of Little WomenIntroductionLouisa May Alcott, the second daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail “Abba” May was born in Germantown, Pennsy1vania on November 29, 1832. Her famous work, Little Women is a nov
11、el written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four sistersMeg, Jo, Beth, and Amy Marchand is loosely based on the authors childhood experiences with her three sisters. The first p
12、art of the book was an immediate commercial and critical success, prompting the composition of the books second part titled Good Wives, also a huge success. Both parts were first published as a single volume in 1880. Alcott followed Little Women with two sequels reprising the March sisters, Little M
13、en (1871) and Jos Boys (1886). Little Women has been adapted to play, musical, opera, film, and animated feature.Some scholars have studied about images in Little Women. They lay particular emphasis on self-dependence and self-discipline in Little Women (许绮，2004：122). From the studies, we can find o
14、ut that different personalities reflect different outlooks on value and life. The studies only describe what the female images in Little Women, while this thesis is to attempts to read this novel from the perspective of Transcendentalism, and try to tap the Transcendentalism embodied in thought, in
15、order to broaden peoples perspective of reading the novel.Little Women totally reflects the spirits of transcendentalism. The March sisters in this novel were the classic reflections of self-reliance, individualism and feminism.The Development of Transcendentalism A. The Connotation of Transcendenta
16、lismTranscendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19thcentury. It is sometimes called American transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental. Transcendentalism began as a
17、 protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among transcendentalists core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that transcends the physical and empiri
18、cal and is only realized through the individuals intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Brownson, William Henry Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Christopher Pearse Cranch, John Sull
19、ivan Dwight, Convers Francis, Margaret Fuller, William Henry Furness, Frederick Henry Hedge, Sylvester Judd, Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Peabody, George Ripley, Amos Bronson Alcott, and Jones Very. Others included Amos Bronson Alcott and A.E. Waite.The publication of Ralph Waldo Emersons 1836 essay N
20、ature is usually taken to be the watershed moment at which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. Emerson wrote in his speech The American Scholar: We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; Divine Soul which also inspires all men. Emerson closed the essay by calling
21、 for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the new idealist philosophyIn the same year, transcendentalism became a coherent movement with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 8, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals including George Pu
22、tnam, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederick Henry Hedge. From 1840, the group published frequently in their journal The Dial, along with other venues. The movement was originally termed Transcendentalists as a pejorative term, suggesting their position was beyond sanity and reason.The practical aims of
23、 the transcendentalists were varied; some among the group linked it with utopian social change and, in the case of Brownson, it joined explicitly with early socialism, while others found it an exclusively individual and idealist project. Emerson believed the latter. In his 1842 lecture The Transcend
24、entalist, Emerson suggested that the goal of a purely transcendental outlook on life was impossible to attain in practice.By the late 1840s, Emerson believed the movement was dying out, especially after the death of Margaret Fuller in 1850. All that can be said, Emerson wrote, is that she represents
25、 an interesting hour & group in American cultivation.1Transcendentalism was rooted in the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant (and of German Idealism more generally), which the New England intellectuals of the early 19th century embraced as an alternative to the Lockean sensualism of their fa
26、thers and of the Unitarian church, finding the alternative in Vedic thought, German idealism, and English Romanticism.The transcendentalists desired to ground their religion and philosophy in transcendental principles: principles not based on or falsifiable by, sensuous experience, but deriving from
27、 the inner, spiritual or mental essence of the human. Immanuel Kant had called all knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects. The transcendentalists were largely unacquainted with German philosophy in the original, and relied primarily on the w
28、ritings of Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Cousin, Germaine de Stael, and other English and French commentators for their knowledge of it. In contrast, they were intimately familiar with the English Romantics, and the transcendental movement may be partially described as a slightly l
29、ater, American outgrowth of Romanticism. Another major influence was the mystical spiritualism of Emanuel Swedenborg. Thoreau in Walden spoke of the debt to the Vedic thought directly, as did other members of the movement.Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a novel, The Blithedale Romaine (1852), satirizing t
30、he movement, and based it on his experiences at Brook Farm, a short-lived utopian community founded on transcendental principles. Edgar Allan Poe had a deep dislike for transcendentalism, calling its followers Frogpondians after the pond on Boston Common. He ridiculed their writings in particular by
31、 calling them metaphor-run, lapsing into obscurity for obscuritys sake or mysticism for mysticisms sake. One of his short stories, Never Bet the Devil Your Head, is a clear attack on transcendentalism, which the narrator calls a disease. The story specifically mentions the movement and its flagship
32、journal The Dial, though Poe denied that he had any specific targets. Transcendentalists were strong believers in the power of the individual and divine messages. Their beliefs are closely linked with those of the Romantics.The movement directly influenced the growing movement of Mental Sciences of
33、the mid 1800s which would later become known as the New Thought movement. New Thought draws directly from the transcendentalists, particularly Emerson. New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father. Emma Curtis Hopkins the teacher of teachers, Ernest Holmes, founder of Religious Science, The
34、 Fillmores, founders of Unity, and Malinda Cramer and Nona L. Brooks, the founders of Divine Science, were all greatly influenced by Transcendentalism.B. Some Important Comments on TranscendentalismTranscendentalism is an idealistic philosophy that in general emphasizes the spiritual over the materi
35、al. By its very nature, the movement is hard to describe and its body of beliefs hard to define. Its most important practitioner and spokesman in the New England manifestation, Ralph Waldo Emerson, called it the saturnalia or excess of faith. which is popularly called transcendentalism among us, he
36、wrote, is idealism; idealism as it appears in 1842.2 That description mentions two of the very elements, an emphasis upon heightened spiritual awareness and an interest in various types of philosophical idealism, that make transcendentalism so difficult to describe. In actuality, we cannot speak of
37、a well organized and clearly delineated transcendentalist movement as such. Instead, we find a loosely knit group of authors, preachers, and lecturers bound together by a mutual loathing of Unitarian orthodoxy, a mutual desire to see American cultural and spiritual life freed from bondage to the pas
38、t, and a mutual faith in the unbounded potential of American democratic life. Located in the Concord, Massachusetts, area in the years between 1835 and 1860, the transcendentalists formed not a tight group but, rather, a loose federation. Though a movement such as transcendentalism cannot be said to
39、 have had one distinct leader, Emerson was clearly its central figure. The publication of his Nature in 1836 is generally considered to mark the beginning of an identifiable movement. The next two decades were to see numerous new works from Emerson and poems, essays, and books from other transcenden
40、talist figures, such as Henry David Thoreau, Orestes Bronson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, and Theodore Parker. Never forming an official affiliation, these figures and others associated with them banded together for the formation of an informal discussion group called the Tr
41、anscendental Club; the publication of the transcendentalist literary and philosophical journal, The Dial and the establishment of an experiment in utopian communal living, Brook Farm. One thing almost all those associated with the movement did share, however, was a common heritage of Unitarianism. P
42、erhaps more than anything else, this fact helps to explain the development of transcendentalism and its later and larger significance for American culture. The transcendentalists broke with Unitarianism for two reasons. First, they objected to the Unitarian desire to cling to certain particulars of
43、Christian history and dogma. Emerson called this clinging a noxious exaggeration of the personal, the positive, the ritual, and he asked instead for a direct access to God, unmediated by any elements of Scripture and tradition. And second, the transcendentalists lamented the sterility of belief and
44、practice they found in the Unitarian faith. According to Thoreau, it is not mans sin but his boredom and weariness that are as old as Adam. The American Adam needs to exchange his bondage to tradition for a freedom to experiment: old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. In some ways transcen
45、dentalism attempted to recapture for the American spirit the fervor of the original Puritan enterprise. That zeal, with its attendant bliss and agony, had been suppressed or exiled to the wilderness of the American religious experience by the end of the eighteenth century. Transcendentalism was one
46、of the first and most dramatic protests against civil religion in America. Though it did not live up to the expectations of its adherents, many of them expected nothing less than a total regeneration of social and spiritual life through the application of the principles of idealism in America, trans
47、cendentalism has had a lasting impact. In the years immediately preceding the American Civil War, several of the transcendentalists were important participants in the abolitionist movement, and in the decades to follow, widely divergent individuals and movements would find inspiration in the transce
48、ndental protest against society. For example, Henry Ford, who once said that history is bunk and declared Emersons essays to be his favorite reading, dwelt upon the transcendentalists disdain for convention and their exaltation of self reliant power, while both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King drew deeply upon the resources of Thoreaus famous essay, Civil Disobedience.Perhaps even more significantly, transcendentalism marked the first substantial attempt in American history to retain th
