1. TRANSCENDENTALISM

2. What was it?
A literary, philosophical, and political movement (much like Romanticism)

3. When?
1830s and 1840s (just after Romanticism)

4. What did it emphasize?
Nature – within nature, we can discover ourselves (the sun = me = you = the grass)
Emotions – focus on emotions and the senses rather than reason and intellect
The Individual – happiness depends on self-realization

5. Major Authors Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Margaret Fuller
Walt Whitman

6. Ralph Waldo Emerson Leader of the Transcendentalism movement
Believed that all things and people are connected to God

7. Instructions for Journaling
For each quote, write the quote #, then answer a and b.
Quote #:
What do you think this quote means? (put it in your own words)
Do you agree with it? Why or why not?

8. “Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow
“Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow.” - Margaret Fuller
“It’s not what you look at that matters, but what you see.” - Thoreau
““It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” - Emerson
“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” - MLK Jr
“The world is but a canvas to our imagination.” - Thoreau
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.” - Emerson
“We boil at different degrees.” - Emerson