The Kinetic Revolution: Transformation in the Language of the Transcendentalists

Abstract

THIS essay deals with six American Transcendentalists in a way in which they were fond of dealing with life: correspondence. The ancient theory of correspondence antedated its nineteenth-century adherents by long centuries. Chinese sages voiced it in their concepts of the Tao and the Confucian social order which replicated a heavenly model. Indians based the caste system and its Dharma on their perceptions of the structure of the macrocosm. In the Near East correspondence provided the basis for the Babylonians' astrological horoscopes, while in the West it authenticated the sophisticated allegorical musings of medieval churchmen and equally blessed the unlearned superstitions of the poor. Briefly, the theory of correspondence taught that the universe answered, although the answer did not necessarily come in the personal accents of the Christian God. Instead each part of the universe was fitted to a corresponding part in a different plane since each piece of the world participated in the identity of one or several congruent spheres. So a flower told that human life was transitory and at the same time revealed an aspect of eternal beauty. A child born under the sign of Leo