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The Great Transcendentalist Movement Essay Research Paper

The Great Transcendentalist Movement Essay, Research Paper


The Great Transcendentalist Movement


During the late 1800s and early 1900s, a new era was


developing in American society. The United States was an


idealistic nation with separate beliefs and lifestyles. One


of the most intriguing lifestyles introduced during this


time was transcendentalism. Many authors, such as Ralph


Waldo Emerson, Nathanial Hawthorne, Walt Whitman and Henry


David Thoreau, developed this idea and tried to make people


understand the meaning behind this new way of lfe. Through


his extensive writings of books, essays and poetry, Thoreau


gave the American public a deep insight to the new world of


transcendentalism.


While he was growing up, Thoreau rarely left his birth


town of Concord. He felt that man didn?t need wider


horizons in order to write efficiently (Hoff, 31). He wrote


his private thoughts in journals to help him write lectures


and books, and never wrote or spoke about what he himself


had not experienced (Hoff, 32). Thoreau attened Harvard,


but believed that he had not really learned anything of


worth while there(Hoff, 34). This is surprising because


most people think of Thoreau as an intellectual, who most


definitely had a sound education that he appreciated.


Thoreau was a ?skilled naturalist (Whitman, 802)? who


was extremely knowledgable about weather, geology, flora and


fauna. He was known to be quite friendly with birds and


other such animals. He was a self-proclaimed mystic,


transcendentalist and natural philosopher. (Whitman, 802).


The first person to use the word ?transcendental? was


German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He used the term


?transcendental philosophy? to describe the study of pure


mind and its forms. The word ?transcendentalism? is defined


as the ?belief or doctrine asserting the existence of an


ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and


scientific and is knowable through intuition (Koster, 1).?


It is also known as, in philosophy and literature, ?the


belief in a higher reality than that found in sense


experience or in a higher kind of knowledge than that


achieved by human reason (Encarta).? This idea originated


with the Greek philosopher, Plato, who had recognized the


existence of absolute righteousness.


American transcendentalism began with the formation of


the Transcendental Club in Boston in 1836. The leaders of


this movement included essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson,


feminist and social reformer Margaret Fuller, minister


Theodore Parker, teacher Bronson Alcott, philosopher William


Ellery Channing, and Thoreau. This club published a


magazine, The Dial, and some

members performed an experiment


of communal living at Brook Farm in Massachusetts during the


1840s.


The American roots of transcendentalism began in New


England with Puritanism. This was the idea that


transcendentalists were direct descendents of people that


fled to this region in search of religious freedom.


Another major influence of the transcendental movement


was platonism. This ideal held the supreme god as being


primary, with all other things derived from it.


Romanticism also played an important role in the


development of this new era. It was:


The delight in, and wonder at, the beauty and


beneficience of nature, the recognition of the


individual human being as being superior to


society, the concomitant objection to social


restraints upon the individual, and, above all,


the ascendency of emotion and intuitive perception


over reason (Koster, 8).


It also involved the celebration of individualism and


self-examination.


Another factor was that of Orientalism. Many people


believed that American interest in the Orient began as a


purely economic interest, but then moved on to other things


such as spirituality and morality.


Religious philosophers that appeared later applied


Plato?s idea of transcendentalism to the fact that God could


not be described nor understood through the voice of human


experience (Encarta). The Scholastics recognized six


transcendental concepts: essence, unity, goodness, truth,


thing and something.


The terms transcendent and transcendental were


used in a more narrow and technical sense by


Scholastic philosophers late in the Middle Ages to


signify concepts of unrestricted generality


applying to all types of things (Encarta).


?American Philosophy: Transcendentalism.?


http://www.uh.edu/~cfree/courses/americanphil/transc.html.


Arpin, Gary Q. ?The American: Renaissance: The Literary Coming of Age.? Elements of


Literature. By Richard Sime. Fifth Course. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1997.


230-31.


Crowell, Robert L. ?Thoreau, Henry David.? The Reader?s Encyclopedia of American


Literature. 1962 ed.


?Henry David Thoreau.? Why They Wrote: Dickens, Thoreau, Flaubert, Clemens,


Stevenson. By Rhoda Hoff. 1961. 31-60.


Koster, Donald N. Transcendentalism in America. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975.


Microsoft Encarta 96 Encylclopedia (1996). [Computer program]. Redmond, WA:


Microsoft Corporation.


?Thoreau, Henry David.? American Reformers. By Alden Whitman. 801-03.


Thoreau, Henry David. ?Civil Disobedience.?


?Transcendentalism.?


http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/474/. 5-3-99.


?Transcendentalism

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