Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism was an intellectual movement of the mid-nineteenth century centered around the ideas of beauty and personal freedom. These concepts are very similar to the romanticism found in earlier generations and are in many ways inspired by them but where romanticism was based around the idea and image, transcendentalism primarily involved the physical manifestations of said ideas. Many of the major tenets of transcendentalism coincide with romanticism such as the inherent beauty of nature or the distrust of society.
Transcendentalism truly began with Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, an essay which connects man to nature and provides the basic tenets for other to follow. Emerson saw nature as a basic necessity for the conscious brain as it provides time tested personality traits which, when followed, provide true happiness and delight. Inspired by Emerson's essays and philosophies, Henry David Thoreau began to write his own works on transcendentalist thoughts. Most famous of these is his book Walden which is his account of spending 2 years in the wilderness as Walden pond. In this sort of social experiment, Thoreau gained a new perspective of society via his own self reliance where he saw it as rather unnecessary and counter-productive in achieving true spiritual happiness.
More than just an intellectual movement, transcendentalism was also the first wholly American forms of writing. Previous writers had been heavily influenced by earlier British works and never developed a style of their own. When Emerson wrote Nature he also wrote the first of many great American texts setting the stage for the United States to enter global respects of literature. The physical transcendentalist movement began to die shortly before the civil war, but the jump start it gave to American literature and the impacts it had on the American people would last forever.
Transcendentalism truly began with Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature, an essay which connects man to nature and provides the basic tenets for other to follow. Emerson saw nature as a basic necessity for the conscious brain as it provides time tested personality traits which, when followed, provide true happiness and delight. Inspired by Emerson's essays and philosophies, Henry David Thoreau began to write his own works on transcendentalist thoughts. Most famous of these is his book Walden which is his account of spending 2 years in the wilderness as Walden pond. In this sort of social experiment, Thoreau gained a new perspective of society via his own self reliance where he saw it as rather unnecessary and counter-productive in achieving true spiritual happiness.
More than just an intellectual movement, transcendentalism was also the first wholly American forms of writing. Previous writers had been heavily influenced by earlier British works and never developed a style of their own. When Emerson wrote Nature he also wrote the first of many great American texts setting the stage for the United States to enter global respects of literature. The physical transcendentalist movement began to die shortly before the civil war, but the jump start it gave to American literature and the impacts it had on the American people would last forever.