Transcendentalism (Literary period)
Transcendentalism was a significant literary, religious, and philosophical movement that emerged in the early 19th century, primarily in the United States, and peaked during the 1830s and 1840s. Rooted in the romantic tradition, transcendentalism emphasized individual intuition and the beauty of nature as pathways to understanding deeper truths about life. It arose partly as a response to the Unitarian movement, which had focused on reason in religion, with transcendentalists advocating for personal insight and emotional experiences over institutionalized doctrines.
Key figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau played pivotal roles in this movement, producing influential works such as Emerson's "Nature" and Thoreau's "Walden," which celebrated simplicity and deep connection to the natural world. The movement also gave rise to communal experiments, such as Brook Farm, where members sought to live out transcendental ideals through shared labor and artistic expression. Despite its relatively short lifespan, transcendentalism significantly impacted American literature and thought, fostering a spirit of idealism and encouraging a more personal relationship with spirituality and nature. Its legacy endures in the continued exploration of individualism and environmentalism in contemporary discourse.
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Transcendentalism (Literary period)
Transcendentalism was a short-lived literary, religious, and philosophical movement that took place mainly in the first half of the 1800s in the United States and parts of Europe. As a literary movement, transcendentalism peaked in the 1830s and 1840s, inspiring such works as “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. In general, transcendentalist writing emphasized the love and study of nature and the importance of subjective experience in finding true meaning in life.
Background
After a long period of stagnation known as the Middle Ages (or the Medieval Period), culture in Europe and elsewhere found revitalization during the Renaissance, a rebirth of learning and art that took place from the late 1300s until the 1600s. By the middle and later years of the seventeenth century, the roots of a new major cultural movement, known as the Age of Enlightenment, were taking hold. During the Age of Enlightenment, philosophers introduced then-revolutionary ideas such as a new focus on reason. Supporters believed reason was more important than political authority or even religious dogmas. Through reason and science, people could reach a state of freedom, cooperation, and mutual progress.
The Age of Enlightenment took hold strongly during the 1700s, but in the next century, new waves of thinkers began to question and challenge it. Among these were intellectuals known as the romantics, mostly American and British thinkers who disputed the idea that rationalism and science were the only reliable sources of truth in the world. The romantics believed that certain Enlightenment approaches deemphasized the importance of individuals and did not fully support the rights of all people.
Romantics criticized Enlightenment thinkers for leaving too much authority to governments, which could stifle individuals’ rights and freedom of expression. Generally, allowing governments too much power, romantics believed, was counteractive to the cause of achieving equality for all people or ending injustice, greed, and war. Some of the standout writers of the romantic movement were Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These and other like-minded authors focused on forces such as nature, emotion, personal liberty, and individuality, which they felt were sources of truth in the world, rather than the cold science and reason of the Enlightenment.
Overview
The romantic movement was broad in scope and had different levels and branches. One of the most influential offshoots of romanticism was transcendentalism. Transcendentalism did not begin as a strictly artistic or literary movement. Rather, it stemmed largely from a reform movement in Christianity, particularly in New England during the early years of the nineteenth century. There, a group of Christians who eventually came to be known as Unitarians supported the Enlightenment focus on reason in religion. Opponents of the Unitarian group believed that focusing on reason would distract people from embracing individual insight and emotion as important routes toward spiritual fulfillment. These opponents became known as transcendentalists.
Transcendentalists took cues from existing romantic traditions in philosophy, art, and literature as they spoke out about the need for the faithful to seek personal relationships with God. They borrowed from many sources, including German philosophy, English poetry, and ancient Indian holy works. The transcendentalists downplayed the official hierarchies of the Christian church. They also focused on secular life, decrying the increasingly materialist nature of society in the United States and beyond. Instead, transcendentalists encouraged proponents to study the wonders of nature and embrace idealism, the belief that humans can improve their conditions, societies, and the world around them.
In the first decades of the 1800s, transcendentalism was a poorly defined philosophy mostly dealing with religious perspectives. About the 1830s, the ideas of the movement began to appear more commonly in written forms, marking the start of a significant transcendentalist movement in literature. This movement helped to define, hone, and promote the beliefs of the transcendentalists. At the same time, it also shaped the artistic and literary face of the United States and other countries, with many historians crediting it with helping to create some of the first truly American writing.
Many historians point to 1836 as the starting point for fully formed transcendentalist literature. That year, a group of religious thinkers began to discuss serious alternatives to Unitarianism. Among these thinkers was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who helped guide meetings of concerned philosophers and later summarized their discussions and conclusions in an influential essay called “Nature.” In this essay, Emerson posited that each individual could study nature and the material world and interpret them based on that individual’s subjective life experiences to discover their true meaning. This idea of personal enlightenment and fulfillment became widely popular and inspired many other thinkers and writers.
Later, the group began a transcendentalist publication called The Dial, which was initially overseen by writer Margaret Fuller. This periodical helped to further define and spread transcendentalist ideas in religion and beyond. Its articles and essays commonly studied and praised nature and discussed the possibilities of improving life through cooperation and simple living.
One writer who contributed to The Dial, Henry David Thoreau, would go on to become one of the most influential transcendentalist writers and one of the United States’ most prominent literary legends. Thoreau took the ideals of the transcendentalists seriously and attempted to embrace their philosophy by moving to Walden Pond, Massachusetts, where he lived simply amid nature. His experiences inspired Walden; or, Life in the Woods, one of the landmark publications of the movement and of the nineteenth century.
Meanwhile, other prominent transcendentalists tried a similar experiment. Instead of acting singly like Thoreau, they set up a communal living property in Massachusetts called Brook Farm. There, they performed agricultural labor each day and, in the evenings, wrote about their experiences and insights. The Brook Farm commune had a promising start and soon grew to more than one hundred residents with a detailed plan to share work and profits fairly. However, disagreements about the future of the commune and its goals, as well as economic problems, destabilized the project, and Brook Farm closed by 1847.
Many other writers participated in the movement or were inspired by its ideals; these included Louisa May Alcott, James Freeman Clarke, John Sullivan Dwight, Elizabeth Hoar, and Frederic Henry Hedge. However, the movement would not last much longer. In the years following the collapse of Brook Farm, the influence of the transcendentalists began to fade, and the movement was soon relegated to history. However, some of the movement’s primary members, such as Thoreau and Emerson, continued their writing and social activism in the middle of the 1800s.
Bibliography
“Authors and Texts of American Transcendentalism.” Virginia Commonwealth University, archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/index.html. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
Haydel, Judith. “Romantic and Transcendental Movements.” Free Speech Center, 19 Sept. 2023, firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/romantic-and-transcendental-movements/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
O’Neill, Cole. “Transcendentalism.” Literary Landscapes / University of Alabama, 28 Nov. 2017, adhc.lib.ua.edu/site/literarylandscapes/transcendentalism-context/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
Robinson, David M. “Transcendentalism.” Oxford University Press, 14 Jan. 2022, www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0086.xml. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
“Transcendentalism.” History, 21 Aug. 2018, www.history.com/topics/19th-century/transcendentalism. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.
“Transcendentalism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 12 Sept. 2023, plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.