Transcendental legacies in American modernism (William Carlos Williams, Katherine Anne Porter, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut)

The purpose of this dissertation is to offer evidence that perhaps the American Transcendental Movement should not be confined to only the Romantic Literary Movement. From its declared origins in Greek and Eastern philosophies to its undisputed appearance in the literature of today, it seems that if one were to isolate the specific tenets of Transcendentalism, then one would see that these same themes appear repeatedly in many literary movements. This is precisely what the goal of this dissertation is, to take a period of literary history that, for the most part, has no relation to American Romanticism, American Modernism, and show that the themes of Transcendentalism are undoubtedly still apparent.; The dissertation begins with the basic themes of Transcendentalism and the authors usually associated with the movement: Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. Then the dissertation looks at American Modernist literature in order to see the legacy of Transcendentalism in America after the devastation of war and the Depression. The tenets of Existentialism are then shown to be related to the themes of Transcendentalism because Existentialism is an accepted outgrowth of Modernism, and if its tenets can be connected to Transcendentalism, then the existence of Transcendental themes in Modern literature is validated. The dissertation focuses on Modernists William Carlos Williams, Katherine Anne Porter, John Steinbeck, and Kurt Vonnegut, and their preoccupation with the importance of human responsibility developing out of seemingly transcendental and existential themes.; The conclusion, therefore, states that the themes of Transcendentalism endure in Modern American literature. Despite wars, poverty, depression, and deaths of the Modern era, still Transcendentalism is able to offer some sort of meaning to life, whether it is a belief in universals or simply a belief that the themes themselves offer a way of life that is full of concrete meaning.