Transcendentalism: Henry Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau

Of the scores of utopian concepts within the 1800’s, most remarkable of the influx was the birth of Transcendentalism. The roots of their religious philosophy extend much farther back into American history, but in essence, rests in the context of Unitarianism. It’s origins also reach overseas to Romanticism, from which they drew inspiration from. Transcendentalism was an important movement that shaped the course of American literature, it’s assertions commonly taking shape in novels, poems, short stories, and essays, the most famous of authors including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalists sought for their sentiments to be present in the United States, to redefine man in response to the changing context of America. Since it’s emergence in the 1820’s, Transcendentalism had lasting religious, social, and political implications on the order of society.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds… With consistency a great soul simply has nothing to do.” (Emerson)

Transcendentalism is an idealistic,philosophical,and social movement that developed in New England around 1836. It taught that divinity pervades all nature and humanity and that by experiencing nature one could experience divinity. A Transcendentalist is someone who lives outside the confines of societys rules, finding inspiration and meaning through experiencing nature. Transcendentalism rose as a reaction against 18th century rationalism,sensualism ,and calvinism, it is composed of a variety of ideals spanning from Hindu texts and other such various religions. Several authors came about that influenced and pushed the transcendental movement to progress and evolve past what it originally was, among them being Ralph Waldo Emerson, (who is credited with pushing Transcendentalism to become a major cultural movement) and other such

American Transcendentalism was an important philosophical and literary movement which placed an emphasis on staying true to one’s beliefs and expressing oneself no matter the situation or consequence. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau fully embraced these beliefs as their influence has allowed these

Transcendentalism relates to freedom in several ways. Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are two transcendentalists that have different views on freedom. Our project, representing freedom, shows a person how to live his or her life in a way of freedom shown by Emerson and Thoreau.

Jon Krakauer, Chris McCandless, and Henry David Thoreau embrace the true ideology of transcendentalism in their writings. Transcendentalism is the belief that people can spiritually grow by becoming one with nature. They believe, however, that they do not need things of this world to do so. Between their stories, we can clearly see the parallels between McCandless’s life and Thoreau’s life.

Transcendentalism is a popular 19th century philosophy that is vividly expressed through out John Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Transcendentalism has three major themes: self-wisdom, nature and its meaning, and social reform. Into the Wild is a true story about a young man named Chris McCandless who seems to live a life based on transcendental beliefs. Krakauer’s studies of McCandless and Thoreau’s story with Walden both present ideas of Transcendentalism in many ways.

Transcendentalism was an intellectual/spiritual movement supporting intellectual independence and intuition by observing nature, largely dominant in Boston. Transcendentalists wrote many papers, and essays and further developed the philosophy as the true power of the free conscious and that self-reliant or independent men were inherently good by nature, and that organized/political parties were causing corruption and sin within the US. They also believed humans could obtain original insights from observing nature, with little influence from past writings. Transcendental signified the growing desire for independent thought and individualism within America, which would further develop and seep through to politics forming a more democratic

Transcendentalism Nowadays many people have their opinions on theories and philosophies about life. Many books have been written and published that focuses on the ideas of people in the past and the present. Transcendentalism happens to be one of them. There has been endless writings about this subject. Transcendentalism has played in role in many peoples lives since the early days of philosophy.

Imagine a world where everyone decides to conform to the same ideals, speak only what others want to hear, and only act as what others want them to act. With the absence of transcendentalist beliefs, the world would only seem to be black and white. Transcendentalism is the belief that people are uniquely made to trust themselves and to not conform to other’s opinions. This philosophy focuses on the importance of nature, self-confidence, self-reliance, nonconformity, and freethought. Even though some transcendentalist ideals may lead to more conflict, this helps society because non-conformity encourages the rise of innovators and thinkers, self-reliance encourages people to become independent, and confidence leads to success.

Transcendentalism is the philosophy of rising above traditional empirical thinking and use one’s own intuition instead. In other words transcendentalism is the idea of “lifting us above the conflicts and struggles that weigh on our souls.” (Brodrick.) With the restraints of everyday life forgotten, it becomes easier to feel a stronger sense of freedom and unity with others around us. One reason why Thoreau had troubles with converting people to transcendentalism was in part because people had a hard time completely abandoning the facts and theories they had always known for new imagined ideas. In the 1800s, people preferred absolute theories on which they could stand on instead of practices that did not have any backing to them. In today’s society though, there are an innumerable number of new ideas and opinions that would shock people back then. Transcendentalism may have been a way of living that was too soon before its own time, but with all the progressiveness that is seen in society today transcendentalism may have a fighting chance of becoming a popular movement.

Before embarking down our own path it is vital that we understand where we are. This cannot be done without first analyzing where we have been. Our path begins “in New England in the early nineteenth-century [with] a reform of the Congregational Church [that] grew into what some scholars consider to be one of the most monumental movements of religion, philosophy and literature in American history" (Carbone). People were beginning to find value within their own beliefs rather than the beliefs that had been forced upon them by social constraints. Of the many riveting, theories to emerge during this time came the notion of Transcendentalism. This was a "practice by which the world of facts and the categories of common sense

What comes to your mind when hearing the word Transcendentalism? Politics in the Transcendental era were often disregarded, diverting one’s devotion to their own development. Transcendentalism can easily be compared to any other movement, some that may contrast, and some that may complement. Within the era of the growing movement, many arose to challenge the norms, bringing controversy with them. Transcendentalism, a theory that characterized by spiritual thinking, protected intuition from societal pressures in a time period that valued logical thinking.

Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that began in the early nineteenth century in America. One of the major tenets of transcendentalism is that society and social institutions corrupt the purity of an individual. Transcendentalists believe that individuals should believe in themselves and not conform to others’ beliefs. They think that society is a major reason why individuals lack self determination and the ability to possess their own values.

Transcendentalism was a philosophical movement that happened during the 1820s and 1830s, to protest against the general state of spirituality and intellectualism. It believed in the goodness of people and nature. It is based on a simple idea that people have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that transcends. It focused on the philosophical idea of self reliance, that people are at their best when independent and institutions like political parties and organised religions, corrupt the virtue of an individual. And a true community is only formed of such people. So Transcendentalism has an individualistic tone to its subject matter. It gives the message of confident self identity. Transcendentalists believed in the unity of God and not trinity. Transcendentalism was also a religious and literary movement. It developed as a response to rationalism, Locke’s philosophy of Sensualism and the predestinationism of New England Calvinism. Sensualism which was advocated by great philosophers