“ We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds… A
nation of men of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine soul
which also inspires all men,”
The American transcendentalism was an important movement in
philosophy and literature that flourished during the early to middle years
of the nineteenth century about 1836 to 1860. Transcendentalism was
also the rebirth of an intellectual and artistic life that was bound up with
the life of spirit.
The transcendentalists felt that something was lacking in
Unitarianism. Sobriety, mildness and clam rationalism failed to satisfy
them. Yes this movement began as a reform of the Unitarian church,
trying to extend the views of the church to one of an indwelling god and
the significance of intuitive thought.
For the transcendentalists the soul of each individual is
Identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world
contains; This is known as the over-soul.
Then this belief became the heart of the American Renaissance.
Our Nations thoughts in literature, poetry, painting, architecture and
music changed drastically in this time period. The main belief was still
that Idea and reasoning is direct revelation.
In 1836 The Transcendental Club in Boston, under the
leadership of essayist Emerson, feminist Margaret Fuller, educator
Bronson Alcott, and writer Henry David Thoreau. They opposed the
strict ritualism and dogmatic theorem.
The transcendentalists were influenced by romanticism,
especially such aspects as self-examination, celebration of individualism,
and taking the beauties of nature and humankind. The music is the
almost the same as that in romanticism, except that the musician put an
divine emotional feel to it.
Their Utopian communities of Brook Farm and Fruitlands were
filled with romantic style architecture. Here the transcendentalists could
meditate with nature, though work and art. They did this to transcend
the senses and attain an understanding of beauty and goodness and
truth.
In some ways transcendentalism was an attempt to recapture
the American spirit. Though transcendentalism did not live up to the
expectations of its followers, the total regeneration of social and
spiritual life, it had a lasting impact on American culture.
In the years
after the Civil War, several of the transcendentalists were important in
the reshaping the populous for decades to come. For example, Henry
Ford dwelt on the disdain for convention and exaltation of self-reliant
power. Gandhi and Martin Luther King drew on the Thoreau essay
called “Civil Disobedience.”
The only ideal that anti-transcendentalism has that is different
is that it focuses and controls the darkness of the human soul. Anti-
transcendentalists felt that transcendentalism was way to optimistic, and
overlooked the evil that plagued man; so they embraced sin and evil,
making their work very dark.
The nature of the movement emphasis on heightened spiritual
awareness and interest in various types of idealism. This is why
transcendentalism has dominated the thinking of American Renaissance,
and its resonance reverberated though American life into 20th century.
