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Who are the most popular and influential Transcendentalists?
Overview
- The philosophy of transcendentalism arose in the 1830s in the eastern United States as a reaction to intellectualism.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were two of the most famous and influential transcendentalists.
Who were the Transcendentalists views?
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.
Did Transcendentalists believe people were good?
Key transcendentalism beliefs were that humans are inherently good but can be corrupted by society and institutions, insight and experience and more important than logic, spirituality should come from the self, not organized religion, and nature is beautiful and should be respected.
Who did Transcendentalists oppose?
What we now know as transcendentalism first arose among the liberal New England Congregationalists, who departed from orthodox Calvinism in two respects: they believed in the importance and efficacy of human striving, as opposed to the bleaker Puritan picture of complete and inescapable human depravity; and they …
Are transcendentalists optimistic or pessimistic?
Transcendentalists were idealistic and optimistic because they believed they could find answers to whatever they were seeking. All they had to do was learn to read, through their intuition, the external symbols of nature and translate them into spiritual facts.
What is Transcendentalism easy?
Transcendentalism is a very formal word that describes a very simple idea. People, 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.
How did the Transcendentalists view society?
As a group, the transcendentalists led the celebration of the American experiment as one of individualism and self-reliance. They took progressive stands on women’s rights, abolition, reform, and education. They criticized government, organized religion, laws, social institutions, and creeping industrialization.
Why Transcendentalism is so important?
Transcendentalism served as a metaphysical basis to explain and justify newfound democracy. The need for reconciliation of expansive and contracting impulses of transcendentalism is similar to democracy, where a person needs to realize without sacrificing both his need for liberty (egoistic tendency) and his goal of equality.
Who were the Transcendentalists?
Transcendentalism is an American literary, philosophical, religious, and political movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. Other important transcendentalists were Henry David Thoreau , Margaret Fuller , Lydia Maria Child , Amos Bronson Alcott , Frederic Henry Hedge, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody , and Theodore Parker .
What are the main beliefs of transcendentalism?
A core belief of transcendentalism is in the inherent goodness of people and nature. Adherents believe that society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, and they have faith that people are at their best when truly “self-reliant” and independent.
Who was considered the leader of transcendentalism?
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882) was an American philosopher , essayist and poet of the early Modern period. He was the leader of the Transcendentalism movement in the mid-19th Century.