THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS
Information from “American Transcendentalism,”
www.guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/ campbell/enl311/amtrans.htm
by James Vineyard
Sachse High School
ELA Department
WHAT IS TRANSCENDENTALISM?
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1830s-1840s
Philosophical movement
Reflected in literature
Unitarian: the soul of the individual is
“identical with the soul of the world and
contains what the world contains.”
SOURCES OF THE MOVEMENT
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Reaction to Calvinism, which stated that
man is essentially evil, in need of
salvation, and his afterlife is
predetermined
Reaction to Deism: the idea that God is
uninterested in the affairs of man
Reaction to rationalism: the idea that all
events/phenomena can be explained
CHARACTERISTICS OF
TRANSCENDENTALISM
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Perception is more important than reason
Microcosm and Macrocosm: Each part of
nature contains all of nature within it
Nature as a symbol: all natural things represent
something spiritual
Universal soul or “Oversoul:” "Meantime
within man is the soul of the whole; the wise
silence; the universal beauty, to which every
part and particle is equally related."
CHARACTERISTICS OF
TRANSCENDENTALISM
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Essentially, man is good and will aspire
to do good
Society causes the downfall of mankind
Optimistic: good things happen because
of the influence of man
AUTHORS
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Margaret Peabody
Influenced by Transcendentalism:
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Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Frederick Douglass
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
FAMOUS WORKS
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The Dial
Transcendentalist magazine/publication
 Edited by Emerson
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Nature—a book of essays by Emerson
Walden—a book of reflections by
Thoreau