Transcendentalists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism

**Transcendentalism** is a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s^[1] in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature.

Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupt the purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.

• 1 History
  • 1.1 Origins
  • 1.2 Emerson's *Nature*
  • 1.3 The Transcendental Club
  • 1.4 Second wave of transcendentalists
• 2 Beliefs
  • 2.1 Transcendental knowledge
  • 2.2 Individualism
  • 2.3 Indian religions
  • 2.4 Idealism
• 3 Influence on other movements
• 4 Major figures
• 5 Criticism
• 6 Other meanings
  • 6.1 Transcendental idealism
  • 6.2 Transcendental theology
• 7 See also
• 8 Notes
• 9 References
• 10 Sources
• 11 Further reading
• 12 External links

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/

Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Other important transcendentalists were Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos Bronson Alcott, Frederic Henry Hedge, and Theodore Parker.

Stimulated by English and German Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, and the skepticism of Hume, the transcendentalists operated with the sense that a new era was at hand. They were critics of their contemporary society for its unthinking conformity, and urged that each person find, in Emerson's words, “an original relation to the universe” (O, 3).

Emerson and Thoreau sought this relation in solitude amidst nature, and in their writing. By the 1840s they, along with other transcendentalists, were engaged in the social experiments of Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden; and, by the 1850s in an increasingly urgent critique of American slavery.

• 1. Origins and Character
• 2. High Tide: *The Dial*, Fuller, Thoreau
• 3. Social and Political Critiques
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

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The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism

edited by Joel Myerson, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, Laura Dassow Walls