Transcendentalists

Ideas and Significant Authors:

Who were they?• Rebels: Transcendentalists rebelled against

the “current situation” in America: they wanted to be DIFFERENT!

• VERY well-educated!• Mostly from New England (near Boston).• Believed America needed “Literary

Independence” – an identity that was uniquely “American”.

• Movement closely linked to religion and believed in individual relationship with “God” – not just what the Church decreed.

The Enlightenment (Age of Rationalists)

BEFORE the Romantics

• Religious movement in the 1800s.• Believed in Reason and

Experimentation (especially in regards to religion and beliefs).

• Used a Logical approach to answer questions.

Romantics/Transcendentalists

• Less rational more intuitive thoughts• More in touch with the Senses• Philosophical approach to answering

questions.• Believed the Revolutionary times and

the Enlightenment did not “go far enough”

• Believed Rationalists were “Corpse-cold”

Romantics/Transcendentalists

• Believed in:– Intuition– Passion– Insight– Inspiration– Anti-Slavery– Women’s Rights– Social Reform

Other Influences:• More worldly exploration led to Non-

Western thoughts and ideas: – Buddhism– Hinduism

• Looked at other religions as having truth in them (Believed in more than just Christian Ideology: there must be more than just one right answer)

Significant Authors

• Ralph Waldo Emerson• Henry David Thoreau• Emily Dickinson

• Margaret Fuller• Theodore Parker• Harriet Martineau• James Martineau

How they are different from Romantics, yet the same.Similarities Differences

Nature Education is the key to ultimate freedom

The Common Man Self-education is best

Society Corrupts thoughts and ideas

People born to fulfill “human potential”

(Women and African-born people especially) and deserved basic right to

freedom, education, etc

Emerson said:

“We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will

speak our own minds…a nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself

inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.”