Essays on Transcendentalism

The philosophy of transcendentalism originated in the 1830s in the eastern part of the United States in response to intellectualism. It is considered to be one of the major movements of religion, philosophy and literature in American history. Its followers desired intense spiritual experiences and sought to go beyond the purely material world of reason…

Literary writers in the American Renaissance (between 1840 and 1860) were in opposition some wanted to expose the evil in humanity heart to prove we could never achieve perfection, while other writers thought man could do no wrong. These writers were known as the Dark Romantics and Transcendentalists. Between 1840, to 1860, there was a…

Introduction A lot of things change in the society either for the good or the bad of the people according to the motives of the executors. Some of the changes include technology, federal laws and also personal thoughts about self-beliefs among many more. Change in self-beliefs is quite interesting because it changes one’s perspective of…

Domesticity, transcendentalism and frontier cultural innovations of the 19th century American experience have all had major long term effects and influences into our culture today. They incorporate and consist of various American experiences we place high value in then and now. Considering this, a very important relationship between the frontier and transcendentalism ideas is that…

A movie that relates to transcendentalism is “The Dead Poets Society” which is about a group of boys in private school. They encounter one specific teacher Mr. Keating, who is a little different than most teachers. Mr. Keating wanted to inspire the motivation to look past what society was telling them to do rather than…

The American transcendentalists, in particular, found sympathetic ideals in such mystical philosophies as Neoplatonism, and in the religions of East Asia, introduced into the Boston area in the early nineteenth century. From Hinduism and Buddhism, they adopted a holistic philosophy based in pantheism and in the ideal of a ‘universal brotherhood’ shared by humanity, nature,…

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were two American philosophers whose separate works inspired one another. The two philosophers sought to present the reality of life and what it feels to live a normal life. As such, they subjected themselves to different living conditions to make their works a success. Their main area of…

With so much that the world has to offer, it only seems fit that we explore what it has in store for us. In the novel “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, a young man named Chris McCandless was discovered dead in the Alaskan wilderness in the summer of 1992. McCandless always believed that the…

How is Transcendentalism still relevant? Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820’s in Eastern United States. It resembled British Romanticism. Transcendentalism is a reaction to rationalism and intellectualism. Transcendentalism was about a simple life, and enjoying nature. One of the most influential writers to begin this movement…

To Emerson, the ‘transcendental law’ was ‘the moral law’ through which humanity could experience the nature of God as a living spirit as opposed to the historical focus of Christianity where religion was practiced as if ‘God was dead’. In Emersion’s ideas of self-reliance and general divinity, life’s true nature was fluid and energetic. The…