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American Transcendentalism. Radical Romantics. Inspirations. Kant- a famous philosopher- claimed that “all knowledge is transcendental which is not concerned with objects but knowing objects.”. Transcendentalism.
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American Transcendentalism Radical Romantics
Inspirations • Kant- a famous philosopher- claimed that “all knowledge is transcendental which is not concerned with objects but knowing objects.”
Transcendentalism • A literary movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson, says the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the scientific is knowable through intuition.
Transcendentalism • Reaction to Puritanism. • Born out of the Unitarian Church, a liberal, intellectual form of Christianity. • Belief that all people can access god (spirituality) through themselves.
Transcendentalism • Belief that people are born good. • All people, animals, things are connected and share the same soul. Called the Over Soul.
Transcendentalism • Belief in idealism • Man is inherently moral • Intuition is the best guide. Greater than Reason. • One should follow creative impulses
Transcendentalism • If man were left to his natural state--not influenced by society--he would naturally be moral. • Society pollutes man.
Transcendentalism • believes that the essence of things is more important than the thing itself. • British poet William Wordsworth: “it is seeing into the life of things.”
Transcendentalism • Begun by Emerson and Thoreau as a literary movement. • Thoreau Began Communes: Brook Farm and Fruitlands.
Transcendentalism • Basic belief: “By meditating, by communing with nature through art, man transcends his senses and finds beauty, goodness, and truth”
Impact • While Transcendentalism never spread more than 50 miles from Boston, it is said to have been inspirations for the following: • Walt Whitman and Robert Frost • Civil Rights Movement of the 20th Century.
