transcendentalism breathless We're talking about transcendentalism and Poe in English class. Poe, in his "prose poem" (which I still don't fully understand), called Eureeka, says all this stuff about identity, imagination and reason. poe believed that in order to transcned (he also believed in something I'd like to call the "ubersoul", which, if you're good boys and girls, you will achieve upon transcendence), you had to lise all identity because you couldn't have anything to hold you to the natural world. And ya know, transcendence is supposed to be the shit, best thing you can hope to accomplish. But, if you lose all identity, do you fully appreciate being one with the universe? It it worth it at all, then? But, by the same token, Poe also focuses on the imagination and how it's so very important never to lose imagination. He was big on anti-rationalism because if this, he believed that reason was evil and corrupted the innocent and imaginative. Imagination is the only way to transcend, other than death (by which, consequently, you're guaranteed transcendence. Why wouldn't you just wait? Or like.. kill yourself?) and so immerse yourself in it. Don't live life, no, God forbid! why would you wanna do a thing like that? Yet, if your identity is lost upon transcendence then what good was imagination to begin with? And that's a soul to an_animal_already_dying? 030221 ... phil The dimensions of the universe, shows how predermination or fate seems to have control freedom. It would seems that knowledge with reason would lead a person to rule out their own perspecctive as having any special meaning. And that only through boldly accepting truth can one transcend. Without knowledge, humanity may be lost in misunderstanding of the supposed om. 030221 ... x interesting. i never thought of poe as a transcendentalist. 030221 ... Piso Mojado walt whitman 'songs of myself' 030222 ... a thimble in time Transcendence; Enlightenment; Ecstasy; Self-negation; Loss of one's self in the music of Being; Rapturous attachment to the Universe's zeitgeist; The bliss of uniting with God on High; etcetera; ad infinitum; ein sof... We often consider mysticism to be something supernatural or superhuman. But perhaps our conceptions exaggerate the commonality of the experience. Nietzsche was fond of saying, "Mysticism is said to be absolutely profound, but in reality, it is not even superficial." Perhaps we deal with the utterly basic. In a society brimming with fondness for Higher Education, brimming with teen idols, and scouring endlessly after the blessings of capitalism, can lowly spirituality be so plain? 031009 ... Alana In The Fall of the House of Usher Poe depicts negative transcendence. Is he then mocking transcendentalism or is this just his take on it? 040204 ... a thimble in time Stumped by Poe? Try http://www.poedecoder.com/ 040204 what's it to you? who go blather from