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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson was famous for challenging the traditional thought. He was appointed in the church, but resigned due to his wife passing away and not being able consider their beliefs. He left for Europe visiting his transcendentalist friends. Coleridge and Carlyle were writers of the power of the individual. Emerson then became a spokesperson for the new philosophic and literary movement. Essentially, “transcendentalism was a reaction against scientific rationalism”. -
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Margaret Fuller
Fuller's a feminist writer and friends with other transcendentalists. They started the transcendentalist magazine, The Dial. Moved to Jamaica Plain to start up discussion groups about transcendentalism called “Conversations’’. She published Summer on the Lakes, which Horace Greeley then asked her to be a part the New York Tribune as a book review editor. Fuller moved to Europe and became a part of the revolution. Her ship went down, along with her manuscripts on the Italian revolution. -
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Jones Very
He studied Shakespeare very closely which brought him to dive into pious religion and nature. With this profound passion he has obtained, he believes that he was Christ incarnate. He taught his classes in Harvard more and more about matters of morality. His works reflected his strong religious beliefs and wrote often in long blank verse or in sonnets, similar to Shakespeare. He was also greatly influenced by the other freethinkers, Emerson, Alcott, Channing, and Hawthorne. -
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David Thoreau
Thoreau was good friends with Emerson who then assembled others alike to found Transcendentalism. Thoreau published poems and essays from college, before starting The Dial with other Transcendentalists. Then he moved to Walden Pond for two years where he wrote Civil Disobedience after being put in jail for not paying his taxes in protest of the U.S. government. His primary passion was what culture could be like with just nature beyond political and religious beliefs. -
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Self Wisdom
Gaining knowledge by being in tune with nature. Transcendentalism revolves around betterment of the self and with the increase of industries and changes of customs and traditions in society, transcendentalists show there emotion by using the phrase Carpe Diem "seize the day". Self Wisdom is also apart of the creation of the idea that human beings had inherited knowledge and could connect with God directly rather than through an organized religion. -
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Noncomformity
Advocated that society corrupted a person’s inner goodwill. Transcendentalists believed that by remaining outside of society's influences a person could transcend the evil things society tempted them to achieve there sense of true peace. -
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Social Reform
Transcendentalists were considered visionaries for showing there attitude toward issues like social protest, elimination of slavery, women’s rights, and labor reform. Transcendentalism became a avenue for social reform because it revolved around the idea of liberation. Transcendentalist writers had the immediate goal for the liberation of the soul, but that goal expanded to social liberation which made more thinkers join the transcendentalist school of thought. -
Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
In Nature, Emerson explained and defined the values and beliefs of the transcendental movement ,and by publishing it he led the movement. The ideas within the work explain many of the transcendental's core ideas and principles like having a personal connection to God and finding spirituality through nature as well as the importance of recognizing what could potentially be explained in nature. He also explains the importance of not allowing society to separate us from God and nature. -
The Hedge Club / The Transcendental Club
The Transcendental Club was an informal club formed by Frederic Hedge and was a place that transcendentalists including Thoreau, Emerson, and many others discussed their ideas and "New Views". The new views were separate from the church's views and beliefs, hence the nickname. The Hedge Club was also where the conversation of creating The Dial was started. -
The Dial
The Dial was created May 4, 1840 with its first publishment the following July, written by George Ripley. Emerson played a big role in its creation. The literary journals purpose was to launch success in the world of transcendentalism and be a place for freedom of expression. The ideas behind the movement were not being accepted in the modern world and was another primary reason the journal was established. -
Woman In the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller
The text argues about equal marriage and how men don’t have to be fully masculine and vice versa. It uses Transcendental values to further her argument for gender equality. She talks about ‘divine love’, which is the equal amount of love each partner should receive.The main points that she hits on throughout her essay are types of marriages: convenience, lust-filled, similar personality, or strictly spiritual marriage, and states her opinion about how they should be more meaningful and genuine. -
Civil Disobedience by David Thoreau
Thoreau wrote Civil Disobedience after the night he spent jail for omitting his taxes in protest of the Mexican War and slavery. This text is an essay discusses that a person should have a conscious rather than conform to authority. His belief is if a person knows that the government is being unjust, they should distance themselves. This essay increased the dividing line between slavery and anti-slavery. He then ends with stating that the government fails to see how its an unjust institution.
