04. american transcendentalism

• Ralph Waldo Emerson was the leader of the Transcendentalism movement in the mid-nineteenth century.
• Main principles of transcendentalism:

  1. self-reliance
  2. nonconformity
  3. following one's intuition
  4. immersion in nature
• Transcendentalism: a contemplation of one's inner and outer experiences.
• 4 beliefs of transcendentalism:

  1. individuals are inherently good
  2. individuals are capable of experiencing the divine
  3. contemplation of nature brings about self-discovery
  4.  individuals should live according to their intuition. 
• American renaissance


  This period in American Literature ran from about 1830 to around the Civil War. A central term in American studies, the American Renaissance was for awhile considered synonymous with American Romanticism and was closely associated with Transcendentalism.
• The Dial

  The literary organ of the American Transcendental movement coedited by Fuller and Emerson.
• Transparent eyeball


  the way of perception of nature explained by Emerson in his essay Nature.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature

  • essay published in 1836
  • divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline
  • man must allow nature to “take him away”
• Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self-reliance

  • essay written in 1841
  • “trust thyself”
  • three major points: the self-contained genius, the disapproval of the world, and the value of self-worth
• Transcendentalism


  A philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern region of the United States. The movement was a reaction to, or protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality.
• Henry David Thoreau: Civil Disobedience
• Henry David Thoreau: Walden

  • opening: Thoreau spent two years in Walden Pond, Massachusetts, living a simple life, supported by no one
  •  first chapter: manifesto of social thought
  • the value of simplicity
• Major transcendentalist figures:

  1. Ralph Waldo Emerson
  2. Henry David Thoreau
  3. Margaret Fuller
  4. Walt Whitman
• Emerson: Closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the brand new idealist philosophy'
• The Transcendental Club


  A group of New England authors, philosophers, socialists, politicians, and intellectuals of the early-to-mid-19th century which gave rise to Transcendentalism.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson


  An American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a critic of the countervailing pressures of society.