The Rise of Transcendentalism (1930-1960)

Introduction
Defining Transcendentalism is a very hard task. Over the years, many have tried to
define the concept of Transcendentalism. It is a word with multiple interpretations.
Charles Dickens once said: “I was given to understand that whatever was
unintelligible would be certainly Transcendentalism” (“Transcendentalism”).
Etymology: The word ‘Transcendent’ refers to something ‘beyond’ and ‘above’,
therefore, Transcendentalism is a belief in the existence of divine world, beyond and
above the world of sense. It also means that the word we perceive with our sense is
not real and actual reality lies beyond our experience of sense. So, the divine cannot
be known by reason or rational analysis, but it can be felt and experienced by spirit
through intuition. Intuition is a sort of direct relation with God through which God
guides the human being continuously. The intuition remains inherent in every human.
To revive this intuition, one needs to go back to nature as God has unfolded
everything to humans that are inherent in nature. It is one of the best ways to awake
the intuition. Hence, it is also considered as an off-shoot of Romanticism.
Definition:
Generally, Transcendentalism could be viewed as an American literary, philosophical,
religious, and political movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around
Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was derived from the German Romantic philosophy. In
other words, Transcendentalism could be defined as Calvinism modified by the
Romantic doctrine of man’s natural goodness.
Transcendentalism describes a simple idea that people, both 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
once said: “It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, always do
what you are afraid to do” (“Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes”). The belief that truths
about life and death can be reached by going outside the world of the senses.
Transcendentalism, as a movement has profoundly affected the development of
modern higher education, the national press, and aided in the emergence of
Pragmatism.
The Beginnings:
Transcendentalism, as a movement, began in the 19th century, which was initiated by
New England writers and philosophers united by an idealistic system of thought that
delves on logic and experience to reveal the deepest truths. Therefore,
Transcendentalism is essentially a product of studying the world’s major cultural and
religious classics.
Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, the founder of Transcendentalist
movement, have studied Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism
and others. In other words, Transcendentalism is an umbrella term that covers the
philosophies of various religion across the globe. Therefore, Transcendentalism unites
the ultimate self, a main goal of everyone in all religions. This further defines the fact
that human beings have the ability to remain pure and stay away from all corruption if
they are aware of their inner consciousness.
What is American Transcendentalism?

American Transcendentalism was primarily a religious, philosophical, literary, and

cultural movement. It began in the Eastern part of the United States, in Boston (Nizam
Udin, 2016). Never a truly organized body of thought, and characterized by defects as
well as inspirational ideals, transcendentalism became one of the most subtly
influential trends in nineteenth-century America. Three main currents contributed to
this unique American school of thought: neo-Platonism and the belief in an ideal state
of existence; British romanticism, with its emphasis on individualism; and the
writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Origin of American Transcendentalism:

Transcendentalism has its origins in New England around 1800s and originated as a
result of a debate between “New Light” theologians, who believed that religion
should focus on emotional experience, and “Old Light” opponents, who valued reason
in their religious approach. It arose among the liberal New England
Congregationalists, who departed from orthodox Calvinism. They believed in the
importance and efficacy of human striving, as opposed to the bleaker Puritan picture
of complete and inescapable human depravity. Further, they emphasized on the unity
rather than the “Trinity” of God, (hence the term “Unitarian”).

Where does it come from?

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who gave German philosopher Emanuel Kant the credit
for popularizing the term “transcendentalism.” Transcendentalism began as a reform
movement in the Unitarian church. It is not a religion—more accurately, it is a
philosophy or form of spirituality and it centered around Boston and Concord, MA. in
the mid-1800’s. For many of the transcendentalists, the term “transcendentalism”
represented a new confidence in and appreciation of the mind’s powers, and a
modern, non-doctrinal spirituality. The New England Transcendentalists were
influenced and received inspiration from people such as William Ellery
Channing (1780–1842),  Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888), Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803–1882), Margaret Fuller (1810–1850), Frederic Henry Hedge (1805–
1890), Sylvester Judd (1813–1853), W. Ellery Channing (1817–1901), W. Henry
Channing (1810–1884), Cyrus A. Bartol (1813–1900), Samuel Osgood (1812–
1880), Theodore Parker (1810–1860), George Ripley (1802–1880), Caleb
Stetson (1793–1870), Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), Jones Very (1813–1880),
and Charles Stearns Wheeler (1816–1843) (“alcot.net”)
Radicals and Transcendentalists:
Transcendentalism in many ways is a radical movement, because one could find
radical elements in it. This is considered as a threat to religion. Various philosophies
began to swirl around and the ideas that formed Transcendentalism are from
Unitarianism and German Romanticism. Thinkers in the movement embraced ideas
brought forth by philosophers Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Hegel, Coleridge,
religious founder Emanuel Swedenborg and The Vedas (ancient Indian scripture).
Transcendentalists advocated the idea of a personal knowledge of God, believing that
no intermediary was needed for spiritual insight. They embraced idealism, focusing
on nature and opposing materialism. By the 1830s, literature began to appear that
bound the Transcendentalist ideas together in a cohesive way and marked the
beginnings of a more organized movement.
What does transcendentalism deal with?
It deals with the relationship between man and nature. The heightened awareness of
this relationship would cause a “reformation” of society away from materialism and
corruption. It is a literary movement that established a clear “American voice”.
Emerson first expressed this philosophy in his essay “Nature”, which is a belief in a
higher reality than that achieved by human reasoning. It also suggests that every
individual is capable of discovering this higher truth through intuition.

What does transcendentalism mean?

Transcendentalism is a widely misunderstood term. It is an ideal spiritual state which
“transcends” the physical and empirical. It is a loose collection of eclectic ideas about
literature, philosophy, religion, social reform, and the general state of American
culture. Transcendentalism had different meanings for each person involved in the
movement.
There are four basic premises in transcendentalism that could be represented as
follows:
1. An individual is the spiritual center of the universe, and in an individual can
be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself
2. The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual
self—all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge.
3. Transcendentalists accepted the concept of nature as a living mystery, full of
signs; nature is symbolic.
4. The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization —
this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies:
1. The desire to embrace the whole world
2. The desire to withdraw —an egotistical existence. (Ruben, 2019)
What prompted the movement?
There are many reasons for the rise of transcendentalism. Some of them are: the rise
of cities, the existence of Class Systems, War, Freedom from the past and Freedom
from organized religion.
First, it was a humanistic philosophy — it put the individual right at the center of the
universe and promoted respect for human capabilities. The movement was a reaction
against increasing industrialization, the dehumanization and materialism in the late
18th and early 19th Centuries. Secondly, in the early 19th Century, in the period
preceding the rise of Transcendentalism, dissatisfaction with the spiritual inadequacy
of established religion was on the rise. Some early Unitarian ministers — especially
William Ellery Channing— had turned away from harsh, unforgiving Congregational
Calvinism and preached a more humanistic, and socially conscious form of religion.
Channing and a few others had a formative influence on the Transcendentalists.
However, even the liberal Unitarians remained under the sway of the seventeenth
century English philosopher John Locke, who explained knowledge as perceivable
only by direct observation through the physical senses. Kant's later presentation of
knowledge as intuitive was, in direct opposition to Locke. In this sense,
Transcendentalism was a reaction against the extreme rationalism of the
Enlightenment. The dissatisfaction with established religion affected the
Transcendentalists and is strongly expressed in Emerson's 1838 "Divinity School
Address," where Emerson asked,
In how many churches, by how many prophets, tell me, is manmade sensible
that he is an infinite Soul; that the earth and heavens are passing into his mind;
that he is drinking forever the soul of God? Where now sounds the persuasion,
that by its very melody imparadises my heart, and so affirms its own origin in
heaven? (“Divinity School Address”)
These were critical words, and they drew strong negative response, particularly from
Andrews Norton, a Biblical scholar and professor at the Harvard Divinity School,
who issued his Discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity in 1839 in response to the
ideas Emerson put forth in his address. Like the "Divinity School Address," Theodore
Parker's "A Discourse of the Transient and Permanent in Christianity" expressed
rejection of established religion and religious doctrine. Clearly, Emerson and Parker
both envisioned true religion as a personal rather than an institutional connection with
the divine.

A third reason for the rise of Transcendentalism was the increasing interest in and
availability of foreign literature and philosophy after 1800. Americans travelled to
Europe for study and on their return, brought books back to America. The Reverend
Joseph Stevens Buckminster travelled to Europe in 1801, studied Biblical scholarship
and European methods of Biblical interpretation, and returned home with about three
thousand volumes purchased abroad.
In 1815, George Ticknor and Edward Everett went to Europe to study and returned to
America to take up important academic positions at Harvard. Emerson, significantly,
was one of their students. Ticknor and Everett also brought back large numbers of
books. Charles Follen, a German political refugee, was another influential Harvard
teacher, who was familiar with the writings of Kant. During this period, too,
translations into English from European works began to make foreign thought and
writing more available. The Reverend Moses Stuart, a professor at the Andover
Theological Seminary, translated grammars of Greek and Hebrew from German in the
early nineteenth century. In 1813, Madame de Stäel's De L'Allemagne was translated
into English under the title Germany; with a New York edition in 1814. Madame de
Stäel was a favorite writer of the Transcendentalists, and was seen as an archetypal
intellectual woman. At the same time, many in England and America were exposed to
German thought and literature through the writings of Coleridge and Carlyle.
In 1840, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opened a circulating library and bookstore on
West Street in Boston to supply her comrades with foreign works. The New England
Transcendentalists consequently grew to maturity at a time when the nature of work
and the role of labor were undergoing tremendous change.
Who are transcendentalists?

A Transcendentalist is a person who accepts these ideas not as religious beliefs but as
a way of understanding life relationships. Among the many foreign authors who
influenced the Transcendentalists were the Germans Kant, Fichte, Schleiermacher,
Hegel, Schelling, Goethe, and Novalis; the French Cousin and Constant; the English
writers Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; Plato and English Neoplatonic writers;
Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg; and the Eastern writings of Confucius and
sacred texts of the Vishnu Purana and the Bhagavadgita.
What do they believe?
The transcendentalist, Emerson states, believe in miracles, conceived as “the
perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power…” (Ralph
Waldo Emerson, 1990). According to them, everything in the world, including people,
is a reflection of God, or the Divine Soul. They considered physical world a doorway
to the spiritual world and promulgated the idea that people can use intuition to see
God in nature and in their own soul, and reinforced on self-identity. They also
thought of feeling and intuition as superior to reason and intellect. Finally, they
believed that humans shared one common over-soul with God. These ideas of
Transcendentalism were started by influential poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson
and Henry David Thoreau. The ideas these men wrote about inspired countless others
to continue what they had started and made into what it is today. Among these pupils
of Emerson and Thoreau was Walt Whitman. Over the course of his life, Walt
Whitman wrote poetry based on the Transcendental ideas of his predecessors.
Historical developments:
A small group of thinkers, writers, preachers, and social activists; most of them
Unitarians, founded this movement. Though it had a short span of two decades (1830-
1850s), it widely influenced influence across a range of fields. Regionally based in
Concord and Boston; most men attended Harvard College and/or its Divinity School,
the training ground for Unitarianism. It began as a religious/spiritual movement, but
spread outward to education, literature, philosophy, and social reform. Sometimes it
seen as the first counterculture in America.
The transcendental club”:
“Transcendentalist Club” referred to as a club of the “like-minded”—because no two
figures thought alike. Liberality was the hallmark of the movement. The members are
critical of current thinking and norms. They found something new and refreshing in
Idealist philosophy, specifically Germany It is in other words, “The club of the like-
minded.”
On September 12, 1836, four Harvard University alumni—writer and
Bangor, Maine minister Frederic Henry Hodge, Ralph Waldo Emerson and
Unitarian ministers George Ripley and George Putnam met at Willard’s
Hotel in Cambridge. The purpose was to follow up on correspondence
between Hodge and Emerson and to talk about the state of Unitarianism and
what they could do about it. After a week, the four met again at Ripley’s
house in Boston. This was a larger group that included many Unitarian
ministers, intellectuals, writers and reformers. There were 30 more meetings
of what was called “the Transcendental Club”. Over the next four years, it
featured a shifting membership that always included Emerson, Ripley, and
Hodge. The only rule the meetings were that no one would be allowed to
attend if their presence prevented the group from discussing a topic.
Emerson’s essay “Nature,” published in 1836, presented Transcendentalist
philosophy was formed in the club meetings. This group ceased to meet in
1840, but were involved in the publication  The Dial, at first helmed by the
pioneering feminist Margaret Fuller, and later by Emerson, with the mission
of addressing Transcendentalist thought and concerns.

The Dial was the journal that members of the Transcendental Club founded in 1840.
They wanted a platform to bring their ideas to the general public, but since they were
having a hard time getting their essays and articles published in conventional
periodicals, they decided to up and start their own. The Dial only lasted between 1840
and 1844, because the Transcendentalists didn't find as many subscribers as they had
hoped, and the journal didn't exactly bring in the big bucks.

Transcendentalist movement and its chief characteristics:

Transcendentalists believed that people can understand truth through intuition. They
believed that there's a whole realm of experience that is beyond logical or rational
deduction. According to the Transcendentalists, the only way to access that realm of
experience and knowledge is to trust in our intuition. Our inner voice. Our gut. We
may not have any proof that God exists, for example, but we may feel that He, or She,
or They, or We, does (/do). In “Self-Reliance” Ralph Waldo Emerson tells us to trust
our own instincts and thoughts.

"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place
the divine providence has found for you, the society of your
contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always
done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age,
betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated
at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their
being." (“Self-Reliance”)

Many Transcendentalists started off as Unitarians, but rebelled against the

religious movement as it placed too much emphasis on rationality and reason
as a means of achieving spiritual enlightenment. The Transcendentalists
believed that religion shouldn't be a matter of what's right and wrong.
Religion, and spiritual experience, was more complicated than that. We need
to use our intuition, not just our reason.

The Transcendentalists were not just out for religion: they were social and political
rebels who believed that society needed some serious retooling. To be specific, some
of the most famous Transcendentalists, like Henry David Thoreau, were committed
abolitionists. They wrote, lectured, and campaigned against slavery. women's rights,
was another big issue that Transcendentalists liked to voice.  

Margaret Fuller, a writer was also one of the leading Transcendentalists. She wrote
about the subjugation of women and fought for women's rights. Whereas, Thoreau
was bent on social reform. He believed that if the government doesn't act justly, we
should disobey it. Thoreau's beliefs in social reform and civil disobedience landed
him in jail because of his protest against slavery.

Time line of Transcendentalist activities

1832: Ralph Waldo Emerson gives his Unitarian ministry the heave-ho
1836: The Transcendental Club bursts into being
1836: Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes "Nature"
1840: The journal The Dial is founded because the Transcendentalists can't get their
things published in the real world
1845: Margaret Fuller published her book on “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”
Henry David Thoreau gives injustice a smack down in "Civil Disobedience"
1854: Henry David Thoreau publishes “Walden”
1854: Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman meet for the first
time
1855: Walt Whitman cranks out the first edition of Leaves of Grass.
1861: States begin to secede in droves and the beginning of Civil War.
Key Concepts:
One of the major goals of transcendentalist is to promote new understanding of
individuals and their relationship with nature and society. Further, self-development is
given prominence and self- knowledge is considered is a key to education. Individual
is thought as a source of all knowledge and emphasis is on Self-reliance.
Nature and physical world are considered meaningful. They held an optimistic spirit
of the time, voiced for education, labor rights, women’s rights, strived for the
abolition of slavery. They are also concerned with commitment to individual freedom,
self-development and social progress. These qualities helped to shape the issues and
focus on reforming these issues.
Major beliefs:
The movement believed that everything in the world is a reflection of God, or the
Divine Soul. The physical world is a doorway to the spiritual world. People can use
intuition to see God in nature and in their own souls. A person—is his or her own best
authority. Feeling and intuition are superior to reason and intellect.
Transcendentalism Movement and its Roots:
Transcendentalism is a Religious, Philosophical, Literary and Cultural. The Roots of
Transcendentalism lie in the following: Idealism (Greece, 4th century B.C.),
Puritanism (North America, 17th century), Romanticism (Europe and North America,
late 18th century through mid-19th century) and finally, Transcendentalism (North
America, 19th century). The roots of transcendentalism run deeper and broader than
Emerson and Thoreau. Alcott was the third major figure in the movement, whose
significant contribution to the literature, philosophy, and religion of the American
Renaissance was as well-recognized in the nineteenth century as it seems to have been
lost in the twentieth.
Social and Political meaning in Transcendental thought:
The transcendentalists from the start believed that the society around them was
seriously deficienta “mass” of “bugs or spawn” as Emerson put it in “The American
Scholar”; slave drivers of themselves, as Thoreau says in Walden. In the mid19th
Century, the transcendentalists’ dissatisfaction with their society were focused on
policies and actions of the United States government.
Fuller (1998) addressed the American slavery in Woman in the Nineteenth Century,
the “choice of the people,” she wrote, “threatens to rivet the chains of slavery and the
leprosy of sin permanently on this nation, with the annexation of Texas!” (97).
“… have you nothing to do with this? You see the men, how they are willing
to sell shamelessly, the happiness of countless generations of fellow-creatures,
..., and their immortal souls for a money market and political power. You
would not speak in vain; whether each in her own home, or banded in union.”
(Thoreau, 1973)
This call both to the individual and to individuals acting together characterizes
Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849). Thoreau concludes: “I cannot
for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the
slave’s government also” (Thoreau, 1989).
Major Transcendentalists
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
Waldo Emerson is the center of the American transcendental movement, often
referred as the Father of Transcendentalism, he had set most of its ideas and values in
his work, Nature (1836), that represented his intense study in philosophy, religion,
and literature. His Essays (first series) (1841) also reflect his transcendental ideas.
Meanwhile, tragedy struck with the sudden death of his five-year old son Waldo in
1842, soon after the death of his son, strain appears in Emerson's writing, that began
with his memorial poem, “Threnody”. In 1845 he began extensive lecturing on "the
uses of great men," a series that culminated with the publication of Representative
Men (1850). In 1847 Emerson travelled to England, and noticed the industrialization
and the chasm between upper and lower classes in the country. When he returned to
Concord, he had a new approach to English culture, which he expressed in his lectures
on the "Natural History of Intellect" and his 1856 book, English Traits. In 1851 he
began a series of lecture, later published as The Conduct of Life (1860). He had been
a profound inspiration for many writers, especially Henry Thoreau and Walt
Whitman. In 1857 he wrote an essay on "Memory" but ironically, in his later years,
his own memory faltered, especially after his beloved house burned in 1872. He died
quietly of pneumonia in 1882.
 Emerson argues that we need to learn to be a lot more individualistic-it's about
freeing ourselves from the fetters of social convention and the opinions of others. By
following our individual path and inner instinct will we be able to distinguish truth
from falsehood and good from evil. Emerson's essay exemplifies the
Transcendentalist virtue of individualism and in "Self-Reliance," Emerson shows us
exactly why that's so important.
"Nature"
Emerson's, essay is about the power of nature. Nature can actually lead us to
God, and to our true selves. This essay was influential when it was first published. So
much so that it became one of the founding documents of the Transcendental Club,
which was founded the same year.

In "Self-Reliance," Emerson advises us to trust ourselves. After all, it's the only way
to achieve self-reliance. Moving onto "Nature," where Emerson argues that
everything is connected. Beauty, he even says (thinking of the sunset sort of beauty),
is "one expression for the universe." Emerson read this as a lecture at the Masonic
Temple, Boston, in January, 1842; it was first published in his “Nature, Addresses and
Lectures (1849)”. What is popularly called Transcendentalism is Idealism; Idealism as
it appears in 1842 is idealist, materialist and transcendentalist.

Nature
Emerson attempts to solve an abstract problem: that humans do not fully accept
nature's beauty. The essay has eight sections: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language,
Discipline, Idealism, Spirit and Prospects. Each section adopts a different perspective
on the relationship between humans and nature. Emerson uses spirituality as a major
theme in the introduction to Nature, where he argues that people of his era must move
beyond retrospection and create their own views of the world around them instead.
For this reason, he advocates for a reevaluation of how human beings interact with
Nature, particularly the relationship between Nature and the soul. As Emerson sees it,
people’s natural surroundings can not only meet their material needs but also help
them realize Nature’s aesthetic value, achieve spiritual growth, think more clearly,
and attain self-discipline. Emerson labels these respective uses for Nature as
Commodity, Beauty, Language, and Discipline. He explains each of these dimensions
in greater detail in the ensuing chapters. Ralph Waldo Emerson is of the view that
nature and the beauty of nature can only be understood by a man when he is in
solitude. It is only in solitude that a man realizes the significance of nature because he
is far away from the hustled life that he is accustomed to live since childhood. It is
extremely essential for a man to take himself away from the distractions of the society
to understand the importance of nature and what nature has to offer.

Emerson creates a common ground metaphorically and in an abstract sense speaks to

each and every man. He is of the opinion that we take nature and its beauty for
granted, for example, we take stars for granted because we know that wherever we go,
the stars will be with us. What Emerson makes clear is that though we can see the
stars and they are accessible, they are only accessible visibly. Creating a link between
the landscape and the stars, Emerson states that everything in the Universe is linked to
one another. Instead of being a collection of integrated objects, he sees nature as an
integrated whole.

It is extremely essential to see nature plainly instead of seeing it superficially as most

of us do and Emerson states that he is one of the lucky individuals who sees nature
plainly. Because of this reason, he looks at nature plainly and lived a life full of peace
and solitude. In order to develop deep connection with nature, it is essential to see
nature through the eyes of a child. It is only then that an individual will be in a
position to understand nature. Transcendentalism is also visible in the essay where the
poet is of the opinion that when he is alone in the woods he can feel himself being one
with the nature as a result of which he can also feel the presence of God within him
and all around him (Gura, 2008).

Nature and the oversoul:

Emerson's transcendental philosophy, all originates from and expand in God, as God
itself, with growth towards betterment through interaction of all parts that it created.
God is the deep silent ground of the totality of existence, which is made of endless
circles of relations that contain countless forms, which are an extension of God itself,
and, therefore, bathed in its presence simultaneously.

Idealism sees the world in God. It beholds the whole circle of persons and things, of
actions and events, of country and religion, not as painfully accumulated, atom after
atom, act after act, in an aged creeping Past, but as one vast picture which God paints
on the instant eternity for the contemplation of the soul. (p. 60)
The Over soul:
(1) the existence and nature of the human soul
(2) the relationship between the soul and the personal ego
(3) the relationship of one human soul to another
(4) the relationship of the human soul to God.

The major emphasis of American transcendentalism is transcendence, which involves

reaching beyond what can be expressed in words or understood in logical or rational
thinking to seek the genesis of our existence. By gaining a new understanding, we
attain a heightened awareness of the world and our rightful place in it. Emerson refers
to this all-encompassing force that he credits for the mystery of our existence by
various terms: God, the Universal Being, the Over-Soul. He closely identifies nature
with this force, to the extent that, finally, his philosophy is generally judged to be
pantheistic rather than theistic. That is, God coexists with nature, sharing similar
powers, rather than being a power beyond it.

Self-Reliance (1841)
The following are the key ideas in Self-reliance:
Trust thyself, Resist conformity and Divine Providence, these are the main focus in
Self-reliance. Emerson introduces the text with a quote Ne te quaesiveris extra-Which
means- Do not seek outside yourself/look within. Emerson has also included
three epigraphs, one that translates as “Do not seek for things outside of yourself,”
another from a poem by Beaumont and Fletcher that emphasizes that a person’s fate is
not determined by the stars, and a third that praises the “power and speed” of a child
raised in the wilds of nature (“litcharts”).
According to Emerson, individual perceptions of art or literature are more important
than the actual works that occasion them, and ordinary intuitions are more important
than those of respected sources of knowledge. These two claims reflect the respect
that transcendentalists have for the individual and Emerson’s rejection of
conventionality. Further, he identifies a problem by representing “every man”—his
ideal American reader who feels stifled by societal expectations but is not quite sure
how to find the answers to how he should live. Emerson already is against conformity,
and his emphasis on the need for individuals to avoid conformity and false
consistency, and instead follow their own instincts and ideas.
The essay illustrates Emerson's finesse for synthesizing and translating classical
philosophy into accessible language, and for demonstrating its relevance to everyday
life. Some Scholars conventionally organize “Self-Reliance” into three sections: the
value of and barriers to self-reliance (paragraph 1-17), self-reliance and the individual
(paragraph 18-32), and self-reliance and society (The Value of and Barriers to Self-
Reliance (paragraph 1-17). Emerson opens his essay with the assertion, "To believe in
your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for
all men, - that is genius." His statement captures the essence of what he means by
"self-reliance," namely the reliance upon one's own thoughts and ideas. He argues that
individuals, like Moses, Plato, and Milton, are held in the highest regard because they
spoke what they thought. They did not rely on the words of others, books, or tradition.
Unfortunately, few people today do so; instead, "he dismisses without notice his
thought, because it is his." If we do not listen to our own mind, someone else will say
what we think and feel, and “we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion
from another.”
Emerson thus counsels his reader to "Trust thyself." In other words, to accept one's
destiny, "the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your
contemporaries, the connection of events." If such advice seems easier said than done,
Emerson prompts his reader to recall the boldness of youth. To be a self-reliant
individual then, one must return to the neutrality of youth, and be a nonconformist.
For a nonconformist, "No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and
bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is
after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.” Emerson does not advocate
nonconformity for the sake of rebellion, but rather so the world may know you for
who are, and so you may focus your time and efforts on reinforcing your character in
your own terms. However, the valorization of conformity by society is not the only
barrier to self-reliance. According to Emerson, another barrier is the fear for our own
consistency: "a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no
other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loth to disappoint
them.” Emerson argues, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." While acting without regard
to consistency may lead to us being misunderstood, the self-reliant individual would
be in good company. "Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and
Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that
ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

Self-Reliance and the Individual (paragraph 18-32)

In this section, Emerson expounds on how individuals can achieve self-reliance. As

mentioned earlier, to live self-reliantly with genuine thought and action, one must
"trust thyself." In other words, one must trust in the nature and power of our inherent
capacity for independence, what Emerson calls, "Spontaneity" or "Instinct" - the
"essence of genius, of virtue, and of life." This Spontaneity or Instinct is grounded in
our Intuition, our inner knowledge, rather than "tuitions," the secondhand knowledge
we learn from others. In turn, Emerson believed our Intuition emerged from the
relationship between our soul and the divine spirit (i.e., God). To trust thyself means
to also trust in God. To do so is more difficult than it sounds. It is far easier to follow
the footprints of others, to live according to some known or accustomed way. A self-
reliant life "shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience.
You take the way from man, not to man."

Self-Reliance and Society (paragraph 33-50)

In the concluding paragraphs of Self-Reliance, Emerson argues self-reliance must be

applied to all aspects of life, and illustrates how such an application would benefit
society. “It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the
offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their
modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.”

In regard to religion, Emerson believes a lack of self-reliance has led prayers to

become “a disease of the will” and creeds “a disease of the intellect.” People pray to
an external source for some foreign addition to their life, whereby prayer acts as a
means to a private end, such as for a desired commodity. In this way, prayer has
become a form of begging. However, prayer should be a way to contemplate life and
unite with God (i.e., to trust thyself and also in God). Self-reliant individuals do not
pray for something, but rather embody prayer (i.e., contemplation and unification with
God) in all their actions. “The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the
prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard
throughout nature, though for cheap ends.” Emerson also believes that true prayer
involves an avoidance of regret and discontent, which indicate a personal “infirmity
of will,” as well as of sympathy for the suffering of others, which only prolongs their
own infirmity, and instead should be handled with truth and health to return them to
their reason.

As for creeds, his critique focuses on how those who cling to creeds obey the beliefs
of a powerful mind other than their own, rather than listen to how God speaks through
their own minds. In this way, they disconnect with the universe, with God, because
the creed becomes mistaken for the universe.

In regard to education, Emerson asserts the education system fosters a restless mind
that causes people to travel away from themselves in hope of finding something
greater than what they know or have. Yet, Emerson reminds us, “They who made
England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so by sticking fast where
they were, like an axis of the earth.” One should not yearn for or imitate that which is
foreign to oneself, for “Your own gift you can present every moment with the
cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you
have only an extemporaneous half possession… Every great man is unique”
(“gradesaver.com”). Finally, Emerson addresses the “spirit of society.” According to
Emerson, “society never advances.” Civilization has not led to the improvement of
society because with the acquisition of new arts and technologies comes the loss of
old instincts. Emerson concludes, “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing
can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

The American Scholar

The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon;
gave it the new arrangement of his own mind, and uttered it again. Originally titled
"An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge,
[Massachusetts,] August 31, 1837," Emerson delivered what is now referred to as
"The American Scholar" essay as a speech to Harvard's Phi Beta Kappa Society, an
honorary society of male college students with unusually high grade-point averages.
At the time, women were barred from higher education, and scholarship was reserved
exclusively for men.
Emerson published the speech under its original title as a pamphlet later that same
year and republished it in 1838. In 1841, he included the essay in his book Essays, but
changed its title to "The American Scholar" to enlarge his audience to all college
students, as well as other individuals interested in American letters. Placed in his Man
Thinking: An Oration (1841), the essay found its final home in Nature; Addresses,
and Lectures (1849).
The text begins with an introduction (paragraphs 1-7) in which Emerson explains that
his intent is to explore the scholar as one function of the whole human being: The
scholar is "Man Thinking." The remainder of the essay is organized into four sections,
the first three discussing the influence of nature (paragraphs 8 and 9), the influence of
the past and books (paragraphs 10-20), and the influence of action (paragraphs 21-30)
on the education of the thinking man. In the last section (paragraphs 31-45), Emerson
considers the duties of the scholar and then discusses his views of America in his own
time.
Impact on American thought
Meyerson (2000) Emerson's ideas, and especially those in "Self-Reliance," had an
enormous impact on American thought. He has influenced the American ideals of
hard work, uncompromising individualism, nonconformity, and unapologetic honesty.
In "Self-Reliance" Emerson stated, "A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do
not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me." Emerson's writings
have become part of the fabric of America's cultural consciousness, influencing new
generations of students, writers, artists, and politicians. Some of these have been civil
rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68), composer Aaron Copland (1900–
90), artist Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986), poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–97), and
President Barack Obama (b. 1961)
Other major figures include:
Bronson Alcott, George Ripley, Orestes Brownson, Elizabeth Peabody, Frederic,
Henry Hedge, Theodore Parker and Margaret Fuller. Besides these writers, there were
poets like Ellen Sturgis Hopper, Jones Very, William Ellery Channing II, Christopher
Pearse Cranch a Music Critic and John Sullivan Dwight. A lot of these
Transcendentalist writers wrote poetry as well as essays. Poetry allowed them to
express the more mystical, more intuitive aspect of their ideology. Poetry allowed
Transcendentalist writers to suggest the nature of the "truths" and insights that they
tried to explicate in their essays, but which went beyond the rational mind.
Walt Whitman was associated with the Transcendentalists. His "Song of Myself," has
a lot of emphasis on individualism, a common Transcendentalist theme.
 Leaves of Grass highlighted many of the Transcendentalists' favorite themes,
including nature. One could find much emphasis on individualism, a common
Transcendentalist theme.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862):
He is a schoolteacher, essayist, poet, most famous for Walden and Civil
Disobedience.
He was influenced environmental movement and supported abolitionism.
Walden, in full Walden; or, Life in the Woods, a series of 18 essays (1854) is an
important contribution to New England Transcendentalism, the book was a record of
Thoreau’s experiment in simple living on the northern shore of Walden Pond in
eastern Massachusetts (1845–47). The book that chronicles Thoreau's experience
living alone in a cabin in the woods of Massachusetts near a pond of that name.
Ironically, the pond is now a big-deal tourist attraction for folks visiting
Massachusetts, which is pretty much exactly the sort of conformity, consumerism, and
nature-disrespect Thoreau would have hated. the book reflects many of the key
Transcendentalist themes, including the importance of individualism, the necessity of
maintaining a connection to nature, and spirituality (“Transcendentalism American
Movement”).
 Walden is viewed not only as a philosophical treatise on labour, leisure, self-reliance,
and individualism but also as an influential piece of nature writing. It is considered
Thoreau’s masterwork. Itis the product of the two years and two months Thoreau
lived in semi-isolation by Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. He built a
small cabin on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson and was almost totally
self-sufficient, growing his own vegetables and doing odd jobs. It was his intention at
Walden Pond to live simply and have time to contemplate, walk in the woods, write,
and commune with nature. As he explained, “I went to the woods because I wished to
live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.” The resulting book is a series
of essays, or meditations, beginning with “Economy,” in which he discussed his
experiment and included a detailed account of the construction (and cost) of his cabin.
Thoreau extolled the benefits of literature in “Reading,” though in the
following essay, “Sounds,” he noted the limits of books and implored the reader to
live mindfully, “being forever on the alert” to the sounds and sights in his or her own
life. “Solitude” praised the friendliness of nature, which made the “fancied advantages
of human neighborhood insignificant.” Later essays included “Visitors,” “Higher
Laws,” “Winter Animals,” and “Spring”(“Transcendentalism American Movement”).

Walden
It centers on the following Ideas:

1. A life in solitude doesn’t need to be lonely.

2. Even a simple life can be challenging and rewarding.
3. Fulfillment doesn’t cost a thing.

Some of the essential concepts underlying this essay are:

If you mostly keep to yourself, you won’t automatically end up lonely.

Life doesn’t need to be complicated to be challenging and rewarding.

 True fulfillment doesn’t cost a dime, because seeking truth and thinking deeply
are available to all of us. Just like winter made Thoreau’s life harder, spring brought
about a transformative experience. Sitting on his chair, he watched changes in nature.
It was the ultimate revitalization before he returned to the city and started his next
chapter. But his biggest lesson remains in the following lines: “Rather than love,
than money, than fame, give me truth.” (Thoreau, )

In "Walden," Henry David Thoreau challenges us to question "common sense" and

find a deeper, more intuitive sense of knowledge. He tells us he went to the woods to
"live deliberately," and this quote explains that Nature itself can provide a model for
how to do just that.

A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is

earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his
own nature. (Ponds.16) 

By personifying nature, Thoreau can more easily show how it can be a source of
inspiration and enlightenment. Naturally, we relate more easily to things like us, so
giving nature some human characteristics allows us to better understand it.
(“Henry David Thoreau”)

Society, Consciousness, Existence:

Most men, according to Thoreau, are trapped in a kind of living death that suppresses
everything that is natural and wonderful about being human. Talk about dark. Thoreau
is trying to rescue us through Walden. This book is an attempt to break past all our
misconceptions about the true meaning of life, and get to some understanding of what
real life is. In Walden, waking up is a metaphor for opening our eyes to the
possibilities for the good life all around us.

Thoreau frequently compares American society is to what were then considered

"primitive" or "savage" societies, such as that of the Native Americans. He also
juxtaposes our society with ancient societies such as the Greek or Chinese. In both of
these comparisons, American society often loses. Instead of becoming a more just
society, Thoreau sees everywhere around him a barbaric attachment to wealth and
political power. We are still savages, according to Thoreau, and worse, we haven't
even maintained the best customs of so-called savage societies – lose-lose. He argues
that the project of civilization remains incomplete as long as materialism, injustice,
and intolerance prevail.
Civilization is only another form of barbarism for Thoreau. It has no redeeming value.
His allusions to ancient philosophical texts reveal their relevance to modern American
society. Thoreau doesn't prefer solitude to company. Instead, what he most prefers is
the company of true friends that share his interests and values.

Civil Disobedience:
Thoreau’s essay urging passive, nonviolent resistance to governmental policies to
which an individual is morally opposed. Further, he influenced individuals such a
Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez
"Where I Lived, and What I Lived For":

. . . all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself
culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the
ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the
perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us.

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888):

From the 1840s to the 1880s, in Concord, Massachusetts, there lived an extraordinary
man who left his mark on all whom he touched, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson
and Henry David Thoreau.  Not content to merely preach his views, Amos Bronson
Alcott acted on his beliefs with such conviction that he became—if not the most well-
known—perhaps the most comprehensively “transcendental” of all the New England
Transcendentalists.” the preceding words were penned in 1840 by New England
Transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott in his masterpiece “Orphic Sayings” in
the Dial. 

Notably, Alcott acquired many epithets from his admirers.  He was dubbed an
“American Saint” by one author and “America’s Socrates” by another.  He was also
known as the “American Orpheus.”  In 1856, the prominent Unitarian leader Henry
W. Bellows called Alcott the “father of transcendentalism” and the “Plato of our
time.”  One historian named him a “New England Saint.”  Alcott’s descendent
Dorothy Bronson Wicker called him “a Christ with a family.”  She founded the A.
Bronson Alcott Society in 1979 to reintroduce this remarkable man to his country.

He is a teacher and writer, and founder of Temple School and Fruitlands, introduced
art, music, P.E., nature study, and field trips; banished corporal punishment Father of
novelist Louisa May Alcott. Amos Bronson Alcott was singular among the
Transcendentalists in his unassailable optimism and the extent of his self-education.
Organizations are mortal; the seal of death is fixed on them even at birth. The young
Future is nurtured by the Past, yet aspires to a nobler life, and revises, in his maturity,
the traditions and usages of his day, to be supplanted by the sons and daughters whom
he begets and ennobles. Time, like fabled Saturn, now generates, and, ere even their
sutures be closed, devours his own offspring. Only the children of the soul are
immortal; the births of time are premature and perishable.

Thoreau and Emerson on Alcott:

I think that he should keep a caravansary on the world’s highway, where philosophers
of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed, “Entertainment for man,
but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek
the right road.” (Thoreau, Walden, August 1854).
We pleaded guilty to perceiving the inconvenience and the inequality of property, and
he said, “I will not be a convict.” Very tedious and prosing and egotistical and narrow
he is, but a profound insight, a Power, a majestical man, looking easily along the
centuries to explore his “contemporaries,” with a painful sense of being an orphan and
a hermit here. I feel his statement to be partial and to have fatal omissions, but I think
I shall never attempt to set him right any more. It is not for me to answer him: though
I feel the limitations and exaggeration of his picture, and the wearisome personalities.
His statement proves too much: “it is a reductio ad absurdum. But I was quite
ashamed to have just revised and printed last week the old paper denying the
existence of tragedy, when this modern Prometheus was in the heat of his quarrel with
the gods.” (Emerson, Journals, April 1844)
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850):
She is a Journalist, critic, women’s rights activist and the First editor of The Dial, a
transcendental journal, as well as the First female journalist to work on a major
newspaper—The New York Tribune, and taught at Alcott’s Temple School.
Fuller's theory of mutual dependence also applies to race relations. Her Woman in the
Nineteenth Century (1845) is a political and philosophical treatise that gives voice to
women in history and envisions a new way of thinking about women's place within
society. Like Thoreau and Emerson, Fuller actively opposed slavery. In addition to
speaking out against slavery, she also spoke out against the subjugation of women,
seeing this as another kind of slavery.
Literary Focus:
Stevens has brilliantly encapsulated three main tenets of Transcendentalist doctrine:
that the God of the established churches is a dead, historical God who can no longer
inspire faith; that religious ecstasy is to be found through contact with nature; and that
the living God can be found only within the self. "mind cure conventionalized lyric
transcendentalism into a prosy pragmatism . . ." (Donald Meyer). William James, saw
that "the heart of mind cure was its psychology, and the heart of that psychology was
its displacement of consciousness. Consciousness could not be trusted."
The lasting impact:
Emerson's Nature and Thoreau's Walden are still read. The importance of these
thinkers lies in the endurance of their major writings as American classics, worth
reading in any period, in their influence upon later writers, American and foreign, and
in the powerful inspiration that their reform efforts provided to later social
movements, notably the impetus given to Mohandas Gandhi and to the American civil
rights movement of the 1960s by Thoreau's principle of nonviolent resistance to
oppressive civil government as expressed in Civil Disobedience (first published in
1849).

According to transcendentalists like Emerson, a person who follows intuition and

remains faithful to personal vision will become a more moral, idealistic individual.
For many of Emerson's contemporaries, including Henry David Thoreau and Amos
Bronson Alcott, such a course of action resulted in an idealism that formed the basis
for their actions, especially actions that undertook to critique and change what was
perceived as evil in society. For example, Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes to
support America's involvement in the Mexican War. Transcendentalism also provided
one major philosophical foundation for the abolition of slavery. However, while
individuals such as Emerson combined transcendentalism with spirituality, the
essentially pantheistic nature of the theory paved the way for more materialistic and
exploitative expression. The doctrine of self-reliance mutated from an expression of
moral integrity to a simple assertion of self-promotion and selfishness.

Conclusion:

Emerson resorts to imagery, but his writings are frequently cryptic, apparently
contradictory, enigmatic, or simply confusing. Like other transcendentalists, he does
not offer an organized body of thought; rather, he tends to circle a subject, offering
comparisons, analogies, and hypotheses. Some of the major concepts of
transcendentalism have persisted and become foundational in American thought.
Probably the most important of these is the affirmation of the right of individuals to
follow truth as they see it, even when contrary to established laws or customs. This
principle inspired both the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement and the
twentieth-century civil rights and conscientious objector movements.
Transcendentalism lost its fervor after the untimely death of Margaret Fuller in a
shipwreck in 1850. Although its members such as Emerson, Thoreau remained active,
others were involved in opposing the Slavery Act (1850). Further, the failure of Brook
Farm, led to the dissolution of the group.

References:
Amos Bronson Alcott, “Orphic Sayings,” The Dial I:1 (July 1840): 94–95.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Transcendentalism". Encyclopedia
Britannica, 8 Jun. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Transcendentalism-
American-movement. Accessed 16 August 2021.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Ralph Waldo Emerson (The Oxford Authors), Richard
Poirier (ed.), Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Fuller, Margaret, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Larry J. Reynolds (ed.), New
York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1998.
Gura, F. Philip. American Transcendentalism: A History. Mac Millan, 2008.
Lothstein. S., A., Brodrick. M, New Morning: Emerson in the Twenty-first Century.
Albany: Sunny Press, 2008.
Michaud, Régis., “Emerson’s Transcendentalism.” The American Journal of
Psychology. 30.1 (Jan., 1919):73-82. JSTOR.
Myerson, Joel, Transcendentalism, A Reader, New York: Oxford University Pres,
2000. [Anthology with commentary]
Nizam Uddin. “American Transcendentalism. Features of the Movement and Relation
to English Romanticism.”  Munich, GRIN Verlag, 2016.
https://www.grin.com/document/428498
“Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)”. https://transcendentalism.tamu.edu/emerson
Accessed 16 August 2021.
“Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes.”
https://www.instphil.org/ralph-waldo-emerson- quotes 24 Nov 2020. Accessed 16
August 2021.
Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 4: American Transcendentalism: A Brief
Introduction." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference
Guide. URL: http://www.paulreuben.website/pal/chap4/4intro.html
Thoreau, Henry David, Reform Papers, Wendell Glick (ed.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1973.
Thoreau, Henry David, Walden, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
“Self-Reliance.”https://www.shmoop.com/video/ralph-waldo-emerson-self-reliance.
“Transcendentalism.” History. Com Editors. 15 Nov 2017, Updated 21 August 2018.
Transcendentalism - HISTORY.
Suggested for further Reading:
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Self Reliance and Other essays, Dover Thrift Edition.
The Orient in American Transcendentalism: A Study of Emerson, Thoreau, and
Alcott, Issue 107, Part 1
Harvey, Samantha C. Transatlantic Transcendentalism Coleridge, Emerson, and
Nature, Edinburgh U P, 2013. JSTOR

Buell, Lawrence. Ed. The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings. The

Modern Library Classics, 2006.