Transcendentalism

• Transcendentalism: a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the New England region of the United States
• Transcendentalism started in Germany
• Transcendentalism is a sub category of Romantism
• Some leaders of Transcendentalism

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Margaret Fuller
  • Women's Rights Activist
  • Very famous Transcendentalist
  • Died 1815
  • Bronson Alcott
• Transcendental Club


  • The Transcendental Club was a group of New England authors, philosophers, socialists, politicians and intellectuals of the early-to-mid-19th century which gave rise to Transcendentalism
  • They had magazine named "The Dial"(Named after a Sun dial)
  • They lived in Brook Farm in Boston, Massachusetts
• The Blithedale Romance


  • A satire that written about the Brook Farm communal living
  • Written by Nathan Hawthrone
• Transcendentalism Beliefs

  1. God is in all things, at all times, in the here and now
  2. God is everywhere
  3. Optimism
  4. Oversoul is what they call god
  5. God didn't look like a human, but a amoeba/shapeless spirit
  6. Humans and Nature are a projection of the Oversoul/God
  7. The human mind is how to feel the Oversoul
• Transcendentalism Beliefs con

  • The most important part of the mind "Reason/Intuition" is what allows us to sense and feel the spiritual force that's in everything
  • We can't understand an ethereal/ethereal God, but that doesn't mean we can't sense feel the presence of God/Oversoul
  • Philosophy of Action
  • When we lose sight of God, you must turn to nature to find your spiritually
  • Don't ever emphasis the physical
  • Everything in the world is good
• Transcendentalism is the evolution of Deism

  • Deism: God made stuff and then took a step back
  • Transcendentalism: God is always interacting with the world
• Transcendentalists deny the existence of evil the real world
• Dualism: The dual concepts of good and evil are crucial to maintain the balance of the world
• Ralph Waldo Emerson rules

  1. God reveals himself at all times in the here and now
  2. Nature reveals God
  3. Reason/Intuition allows us to sense and feel God's presence in Nature and ourselves
  4. Reason can "redeem" man but making him aware of his own spiritually
  5. "Make your own bible"
• Ralph Waldo Emerson wants us to think new in "Nature"
• Emerson says in his essay that you're never alone when you're in a library/study because of the literary works around you and the only way to be truly alone is to go outside

  
  

  "In the woods, is perpetual youth"
• Emerson believes we as a society are too busy to actually see God.
• Higher Laws


  Spiritually laws which are over physical laws
• Nature is here to remind us of God.(Emerson's "Nature")


  "In the woods, we return to reason and faith"
• Beauty is subjective and in the center of it is mysterious.(Emerson's "Nature")

  • "The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty"
  • "No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty"
• Emerson's Language rules

  1. Words are signs of natural facts
  2. Certain natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts
  3. Nature is the symbol of spirit