1. THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
Information from “American Transcendentalism,” campbell/enl311/amtrans.htm
by James Vineyard
Sachse High School
ELA Department

2. WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTALISM?
1830s-1840s
Philosophical movement
Reflected in literature
Unitarian: the soul of the individual is “identical with the soul of the world and contains what the world contains.”

3. SOURCES OF THE MOVEMENT
Reaction to Calvinism, which stated that man is essentially evil, in need of salvation, and his afterlife is predetermined
Reaction to Deism: the idea that God is uninterested in the affairs of man
Reaction to rationalism: the idea that all events/phenomena can be explained

4. CHARACTERISTICS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM
Perception is more important than reason
Microcosm and Macrocosm: Each part of nature contains all of nature within it
Nature as a symbol: all natural things represent something spiritual
Universal soul or “Oversoul:” "Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related."

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM
Essentially, man is good and will aspire to do good
Society causes the downfall of mankind
Optimistic: good things happen because of the influence of man

6. AUTHORS Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau Margaret Peabody
Influenced by Transcendentalism:
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Frederick Douglass
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

7. FAMOUS WORKS The Dial Nature—a book of essays by Emerson
Transcendentalist magazine/publication
Edited by Emerson
Nature—a book of essays by Emerson
Walden—a book of reflections by Thoreau