In the 19th century in American, there was a major movement in literary, philosophical, and social

circles known as American Transcendentalism. However before we delve into comprehending and
defining this movement, it’s necessary to understand why it was developed. This movement was a
rebellious reaction against the over-emphasis on science and rationalism in the 18th century

Calvinism with its Calvinism with its bleak picture of complete and inescapable human depravity, its
strict rules and its belief that human outcomes are predetermined.

TRANSCENDENTALISM is a very formal word that describes a very simple idea. People, men and
women equally, have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that "transcends" or
goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel.

Emerson, throughout the essay, proclaims that people should trust their individual thoughts and
knowledge as opposed to what the rest of society says. He would rather act independent than do
something good just because society deems it good. Emerson believed that the only way to grow
better and improve is to trust one's own intuition and constantly work independently.

This knowledge comes through intuition and imagination not through logic or the senses. People can
trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right. A TRANSCENDENTALIST is a person who
accepts these ideas not as religious beliefs but as a way of understanding life relationships.

Transcendentalism

Some of its key characteristics.

 Every person possesses the “inner light” of God, which must be nourished to sustain us.
 Every person possesses “intuition,” an essential and in-dwelling understanding of right and
wrong (moral action).
 Individualism lies at the heart of Transcendentalism. Every individual needs to be self-reliant
and thus not depend upon others if he or she is to be free and to live life fully. Self-
empowerment is attained by defying the authority of “empty” conventions and senseless
rules.
 God or the Life Force in the universe can be found everywhere, thus no need for churches or
holy places.
 Transcendentalism is a philosophical and social movement that emphasizes the inherent
goodness of all nature and humanity and the belief that people can find truth through their
own intuition and imagination.
 1. Everyone is essentially good.
The first is that there is a divinity that pervades all nature and humanity. In other words,
everyone is essentially good but may need to pursue this goodness through thinking and
self-determinization. In Nature, Emerson, one of the leading thinkers of Transcendentalism,
referred to humans as “gods in ruins,” and in his “Divinity School Address” in 1838, he
described Jesus as one of many true prophets whose message was “the greatness of man.”

2. Truth can be discovered through personal experience.

Another core belief is that truth can be arrived at through one’s own experience. Though
transcendentalists were often avid scholars, they ultimately championed American ideals of
 individualism and tried to discover truth for themselves rather than through reason or
adherence to someone else’s specific views.

Transcendentalism, which lasted from about 1830 to 1860, was a vital part of the Romantic
movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson was its putative leader. Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller
were among the principals of the movement.

God assumes the form of moral consciousness residing in each people's inner self, an entity which
can be attained and assimilated by intuition, by senses rather than by reason. Starting from the
Puritan conviction that God's grace revealed through the "elected" individuals, the
transcendentalists preached that the kingdom of God resided within every self, as moral law, in
opposition with the traditional formal morality. They also insisted on the axiom that all things in the
universe have a form in accordance to their function. Form follows function, therefore, in an organic
relation, being the result of a requirement to accomplish a task. Consequently, physical laws are
evidence of moral laws residing within the individual: "It has already been illustrated, that every
natural process is a version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the center of nature and
radiates to the circumference. It is the pith and marrow of every substance, every relation and every
process" (Emerson "Nature" 39).

The Transcendentalists believed there is a divine spirit in nature and in every living soul. Through
individualism and self-reliance human beings could reunite with God.

Emerson’s influential essay Nature (1836) explains Transcendentalism’s main tenets. In Walden
(1854), Thoreau explains how to live the good life and be at one with nature. His celebrated essay
Civil Disobedience (1849) lauds the benefits of peaceful resistance.

Both movements were born as a reaction to strict traditions, laws and religious rules of the time.
Both philosophies opposed Calvinism, a religious doctrine that states that human outcomes are
predetermined. Transcendentalism and romanticism placed a huge emphasis on the individual as
well as inspiration from nature. Romanticism was partially a reaction against realism and objective
reasoning. Similarly, transcendentalism was a reaction against overpowering religious traditions and
dogma. Both encouraged the individual to discover their own truth and be ruled by that rather than
obey the constructs of the time.

hey were leaders in experimental schemes for living (Thoreau at Walden Pond, Alcott at Fruitlands,
Ripley at Brook Farm); women’s suffrage; better conditions for workers; temperance for all;
modifications of dress and diet; the rise of free religion; educational innovation; and other
humanitarian causes.

As a group, the transcendentalists led the celebration of the American experiment as one of
individualism and self-reliance. They took progressive stands on women's rights, abolition, reform,
and education. They criticized government, organized religion, laws, social institutions, and creeping
industrialization. They created an American "state of mind" in which imagination was better than
reason, creativity was better than theory, and action was better than contemplation. And they had
faith that all would be well because humans could transcend limits and reach astonishing heights

ndividualism
As one of the most important beliefs for transcendentalists, individualism means seeking truth
through one's own experience rather than relying on the view or opinion of anyone else. For the
transcendentalists, this even meant not relying on the ideas and thoughts of other writers and
philosophers, despite the fact that most of them were scholars who read many other books. One
quote which demonstrates the idea of individualism comes from Emerson's Self-Reliance:

"A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he
has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace."

This quote demonstrates individualism because it describes how people can only feel happy and at
peace by working on the work which is most important to them, and that outside of that there can
be no peace or true satisfaction. It highlights the idea of thinking for oneself and trusting their own
self to do the best work possible for their own growth.

Another excellent quote which expresses the importance of individualism comes from Henry David
Thoreau. Another advocate of transcendentalism, Thoreau spent two years living alone on Walden
Pond, taking long walks through the woods and living a simple life in a small cabin. In his long essay,
Walden, he writes:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not
lived."

Here, Thoreau explicitly describes why he believed spending so much time alone was so important
to him. Only by himself, away from the rest of society and learning and growing as an individual,
would he be able to really discover truths about life.

Idealism

The second characteristic of transcendentalism is somewhat connected to individualism. Idealism

means that one's own perception and ideas about reality are undoubtedly a part of reality itself. It
promoted imagination and innovation in poets and thinkers and painting the world in new ways. Just
as individualism meant finding truth through one's own intuition, idealism is the belief that every
person has an independent view of the world, and that each independent view is important for
determining ideal truths and ways of living in life. This characteristic grew from the American
Romanticism movement, which, too, occurred in response to the Age of Reason. The American
Romantics valued beauty and individual creativity in their writing, which are the same values which
transcendentalists held as well.

A quote which highlights the characteristic of idealism comes from Emerson's essay, Nature:
"Whether nature enjoy a substantial existence without, or is only in the apocalypse of the mind, it is
alike useful and alike venerable to me. Be it what it may, it is ideal to me so long as I cannot try the
accuracy of my senses."

Here, Emerson discusses this connection between nature as its own entity, and that nature is only as
we humans perceive it to be. He claims that it can be either or, so long as he still can trust his senses
to view the world in his own personal and imaginative way.

Divinity of Nature

Just as British and American Romanticists often wrote on the beauty of nature, so too did
transcendentalists believe in the power and divinity of nature. Thoreau highlighted this idea through
his act of living on Walden Pond for two years.

"My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact
some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want
of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad and foolish."

An image of Walden Pond, where Thoreau spent two years of his life

Image of Walden Pond

Not only did he express the importance of living on his own to discover the truths about life, but he
also expressed how it was only by living in the woods, constantly taking walks, and by observing the
natural world around him that he could find the truths of life. Through nature, he could find his own
personal truth without anyone else's thoughts intruding.

Setting value in nature came, again, as a reaction to society's heavy reliance on reason and
institutions for conformity. Nature, according to the transcendentalists, could not be controlled.
They believed there was something powerful about nature which could teach us more than the
opinion of any other human. Thoreau's journal is the perfect source to find quotes about the beauty
and divinity of nature. He writes:

"I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control
or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst, I can be glad with an entire
gladness."
Transcendentalists loved nature because there was no right or wrong in nature; it simply is. Just as
they believed they could find the truth of the world through themselves and their own nature and
intuition, nature itself is right and unchecked by any of humanity's ideas and laws.

Lesson Summary

Transcendentalism was a movement that began in the mid 19th century, starting with a group called
The Transcendental Club, as a rebellious response to the Age of Reason. The characteristics of
transcendentalism are individualism, the idea that truth can only be attained through the intuition of
the self, idealism (a characteristic drawn from American Romanticism), the idea that each person's
innovation, imagination, and perception of reality is connected with reality itself, and belief in the
divinity of nature, how nature is uncontrolled by human law and institution and grows according to
its own law and power. Two important writers in the Transcendentalist movement were Ralph
Waldo Emerson, who wrote essays such as Self-Reliance, and Henry David Thoreau, who wrote a
great deal on the beauty of nature and independence in Walden and in his journals.