Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Hedge traveled to Germany and studied in music before graduating from Harvard in 1825. His knowledge of German was to serve him well both in hymnody (he translated Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" into English for the first time) and in philosophy, where it allowed him a greater familiarity with Kant than most of the Americans of his day.
After graduating as valedictorian, he enrolled in Harvard Divinity School, where he met his intimate friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was central to the development of Transcendentalism in the 1830s, but became alienated from the group's more extreme positions in the 1840s and did not publish in The Dial, the chief Transcendentalist review.
After graduating from the Divinity School, Hedge was ordained as a Unitarian minister. He served as a minister in Maine, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. From 1872 until 1882 he taught German literature at Harvard.
External links
Hedge article (http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/frederichenryhedge.html) from Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography online
Partial text of Hedge's book Reason in Religion (http://www.americanunitarian.org/reasoninreligion.htm) from American Unitarian Conference
Frederic HenryHedge (1805-90) was one of the key figures in the establishment of the Transcendental Club.
Hedge was also engaged in a protracted salary dispute with the congregation.
Hedge contributed an article, two translations, and one poem to The Dial during its brief four-year existence, yet his interest and involvement in the journal soon languished, possibly because of a growing disenchantment with some of the more radical tendencies of the transcendentalist movement.
Frederic HenryHedge (December 12, 1805-August 21, 1890) was a Unitarian minister, an early Transcendentalist leader, a historical theologian, a German scholar and translator, and a Harvard professor.
Hedge held to a moderating position, thus tending to be dismissed by the zealots of both sides.
There are collections of Hedge correspondence and papers at the Andover-Harvard Library of the Harvard Divinity School, the Houghton Library of Harvard University, the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, and the Harvard University Archives, all in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Feeds |
Contact