Transcendental Wild Oats

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Transcendental Wild Oats: A Chapter from an Unwritten Romance is a prose satire written by Louisa May Alcott, about her family's involvement with the Transcendentalist community Fruitlands [1] in the early 1840s. The work was first published in a New York newspaper in 1873, [2] and reprinted in 1874, [3] 1876, [4] and 1915 [5] and after.

Satire genre of arts and literature in the form of humor or ridicule

Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.

Louisa May Alcott American novelist

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist and poet best known as the author of the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern United States. It arose as a reaction to protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality at the time. The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was of particular interest.

In her account, Alcott provides the real people involved with thin pseudonymous disguises. Her father Amos Bronson Alcott is "Abel Lamb," while his partner and community co-founder Charles Lane is "Timon Lion;" Abigail May Alcott, Louisa's mother and Bronson's wife, is "Sister Hope." Alcott depicts her father as dominated by his more forceful partner, and both men as feckless and impractical dreamers. The men of the community spend their time in pointless debates while Sister Hope works from dawn to dusk to maintain their existence.

Amos Bronson Alcott American teacher and writer

Amos Bronson Alcott was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a vegan diet before the term was coined. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights.

Charles Lane (1800–1870) was an English-American transcendentalist, abolitionist, and early voluntaryist. Along with Amos Bronson Alcott, he was one of the main founders of Fruitlands.

Abby May American activist and social worker

Abigail "Abba" Alcott May was an activist for several causes and one of the first paid social workers in the state of Massachusetts. She was the wife of Transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott and mother of four daughters, including Civil War novelist Louisa May Alcott.

A crisis arises at harvest time, when the grain crop is threatened by an approaching storm. In Alcott's words, "About the time the grain was ready to house, some call of the Oversoul wafted all the men away." [6] Sister Hope organizes the only available help, three little girls and a boy, and manages to save the crop.

The little community collapses as soon as the weather turns cold, when it becomes clear that their provisions are too meager to last the coming winter. Timon Lion and his son abscond to join the Shakers — though Timon is unhappy to learn that life among them is "all work and no play." Abel is crushed by the failure of the enterprise; after days of despair he begins to eat again only when he realizes that his family needs him. Sister Hope finds a way for them to subsist and persevere. [7]

Shakers Christian plain people

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, is a millenarian restorationist Christian sect founded in the 18th century in England. They were initially known as "Shaking Quakers" because of their ecstatic behavior during worship services. As early as 1747, women assumed leadership roles within the sect, notably Jane Wardley, Mother Ann Lee, and Mother Lucy Wright. Shakers settled in colonial America, with initial settlements in New Lebanon, New York. They practice a celibate and communal lifestyle, pacifism, and their model of equality of the sexes, which they institutionalized in their society in the 1780s. They are also known for their simple living, architecture, and furniture.

Alcott's view of male arrogance and female exploitation in this piece is paralleled in her novel Work , published in the same year as Transcendental Wild Oats.

<i>Work: A Story of Experience</i> book by Louisa May Alcott

Work: A Story of Experience, first published in 1873, is a semi-autobiographical novel by Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, set in the times before and after the American Civil War.

Transcendental Wild Oats has been reprinted in several modern editions. [8]

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References

  1. ↑ Richard Francis, Transcendental Utopias: Individual and Community at Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1997.
  2. ↑ The Independent, Vol. 25 No. 1307, 18 December 1873, pp. 1569-71.
  3. ↑ The Woman's Journal, Vol. 5 No. 8, 21 February 1874.
  4. ↑ Silver Pitchers, Laurel Leaves: Original Poems, Stories, and Essays, Boston, William Gill, 1876.
  5. ↑ Clara Endicott, ed., Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1915.
  6. ↑ "Transcendental Wild Oats," 1915 edition, p. 67.
  7. ↑ Nan Bowman Albinski, "Utopia Reconsidered: Women Novelists and Nineteenth-Century Utopian Visions," Signs, Vol. 13 No. 4 (Summer 1988); pp. 830-41; see pp. 837-8.
  8. ↑ Including: Louisa May Alcott, Transcendental Wild Oats: And Excerpts from the Fruitlands Diary, Boston, Harvard Common Press, 1975; and: Joan M. Jensen, ed., With These Hands: Women Working on the Land, New York, Feminist Press, 1980; pp. 49-54.
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