Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism was an early philosophical, intellectual, and literary movement that thrived in New England in the nineteenth century. Transcendentalism was a collection of new ideas about literature, religion, and philosophy. It began as a squabble in the Unitarian church when intellectuals began questioning and reacting against many of the church’s orthodoxy ways regarding all of the aforementioned subjects: religion, culture, literature, social reform, and philosophy. They in turn developed their own faith focusing on the divinity of humanity and the innate world. Many of the Transcendentalists ideas were expressed heavily by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essays such as “Nature”, “Self Reliance”, and also in his poems such as “The Rhodora.” Some may even go as far as to say that Emerson is the definite center of this movement. Emerson was not alone in his path of thought; other prominent authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller were dubbed as Transcendentalists. The Transcendental movement significantly shaped and changed the course of American literature; many writers were profoundly influenced by Emerson and Thoreau and in turn began using transcendental thought, whether in response to or by how they imitated transcendental ideas. The roots of Transcendentalism began to grow from Emerson’s Nature and Self-Reliance, as well as Thoreau’s Walden, which inspired many writers and intellectuals to take part in this optimistic belief that God is inherent in each and every individual,