Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism

Many people have theories and philosophies about life in general. There have been hundreds of thousands of books published by many different people on the ideas of people in the past and the present. Transcendentalism falls in amongst all of these ideas. There have been articles, essays, poems, and even books written about this subject. Transcendentalism has effected many people since the philosophy was first introduced. The idea was complex and hard to grasp for many commoners and therefore it was understood by few people, and some would think that the idea was not understood at all and that was part of the idea. Henry David Thoreau once stated about himself, “I should have told them at once that I was a transcendentalist. That would have been the shortest way of telling them that they would not understand my explanations” (Reuben 1).

Even the people that called themselves “transcendentalists” had only their own thoughts of what transcendentalism was, which in turn were based on the thoughts of others. So, transcendentalism is defined as a philosophy. This philosophy was uniform for everyone that believed in it. This is a difficult concept to comprehend because the philosophy called for people to trust themselves and their own thoughts, which meant that even though transcendentalists held the same central idea, all of their individual thoughts branching off transcendentalism contradicted the other transcendentalists. In Paul Reuben’s web site, Noah Porter made this statement about transcendentalism:

The word Transcendentalism, as used at the present day, has two applications. One of which is popular and indefinite, the other, philosophical and precise. In the former sense it describes man, rather than opinions, since it is freely extended to those who hold opinions, not only diverse from each other, but directly opposed. (1)

These transcendentalists all had different opinions on the different things in life, but they believed in the philosophy of transcendentalism. According to Webster’s Dictionary, transcend means to go further than, or to go past. This would give transcendentalism the definition of an idea beyond other people’s ideas, or even possibly beyond this earth. The idea of transcendentalism is definitel...

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...ed to an optimistic emphasis on individualism, self-reliance, and rejection of traditional authority” (American 1). The major players in the transcendentalist movement are Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. They shared ideas such as self-reliance, and ideas about how there is a divine being that controls every person. They influenced many other writers and they even had an effect on the American society, then and now. Transcendentalism was a philosophy and a way of life. It will continue to be this as long as we have access to the great minds of the transcendental movement.

Works Cited

“American Literary and Philosophical Movement.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition. 1 Jan. 1993.

Atkinson, Brooks. Walden and other writings of Henry David Thoreau. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1950.

Durant, Will. The Story of Philosophy. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1926.

Reuben, Paul. Towards a Definition of Transcendentalism. http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transweb/tr-aldef.htm

Runes, Dagobert D. A Treasury of Philosophy. Chicago, IL: Spencer Press Inc., 1955.

Von Frank, Albert J. Transcendentalism. The Reader’s Companion to American History. 1 Jan. 1991.