Transcendentalism Essay - 1545 Words

Research Skills Paper – Transcendentalism Introduction: The transcendentalism movement first came to be in the mid-19th century as a rebellious reaction to the Age of Reason, illustrated by Thomas Paine, and an overall conformist mindset in their rational way of thinking. Primarily started in New England, Ralph Waldo Emerson was a key component in this new philosophical era of intuitive, spiritual thinking. His unique style of literature (such as Self-Reliance and The American Scholar) as well as Henry David Thoreau’s Walden brought objective ideas into the open, while critiquing the general state of intellectualism and spirituality at the time. The core of the values of transcendentalism can be stemmed from a mix of Hindu teachings and†¦show more content†¦To be great is to be misunderstood† (Emerson, 63). In this quote, you can analyze that Emerson knew that the idea of this type of thinking would not come so effortlessly to people and there would be objectivity. However, others would join him and the ones who did would stick to their new belief rather than going back to their original ways just because people did not agree with them. An example of this would be the author, Henry David Thoreau, a friend of Emerson’s and his book Walden. Instead of writing a book that speculated on the meaning of life, he was hoping to know it from experience. He did this by escaping to a place of true introspection, by living in a cabin a couple kilometers from Concord, Massachusetts along Walden Pond for two years. He continued Emerson proposed ideology by living it himself in a place where he considered to commune with nature and be completely self-reliant. He writes, â€Å"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 I had not lived† (Thoreau, 22). Thoreau achieved this value of transcendentalism by promoting peace and harmony beyond on eself and found himself engulfed in a spiritual journey without modern conveniences and traditions of conformity life. As I read these essays by these famous authors, this got meShow MoreRelatedEssay on Transcendentalism1619 Words   |  7 Pages Transcendentalism nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Many people have theories and philosophies about life in general. There have been hundreds of thousands of books published by many different people on the ideas of people in the past and the present. Transcendentalism falls in amongst all of these ideas. There have been articles, essays, poems, and even books written about this subject. Transcendentalism has effected many people since the philosophy was first introduced. The idea was complex andRead MoreEssay on Transcendentalism vs. Anti-Transcendentalism778 Words   |  4 PagesIn the mid-1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson created a belief called Transcendentalism. 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I think that Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, and Dickinson did a good job of explaining what Transcendentalism is really about, which is that death is coming for everyone. Our Town stands out to me because it doesn’t use any props, and its strong symbolism that makes a point