We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.

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"We will walk on our own feet we will work with
our own hands we will speak our own minds...A
nation of men will for the first time exist,
because each believes himself inspired by the
Divine Soul which also inspires all men."

• Ralph Waldo Emerson,1837 Harvard Phi Beta Kappa
  Address, THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR.

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Transcendentalists

• Concentrated in Boston and Concord,
• Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, Walt
  Whitman, Emily Dickinson
• it was a way "of seeing into the life of things"
  William Wordsworth

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Transcendentalism History

• From 1840-1855, literature in America experienced
  a rebirth called the New England Renaissance.
• Through their poetry, short stories, novels, and
  other works, writers during this period
  established a clear American voice.
• No longer did they see their work as less
  influential than that of European authors.
• Transcendentalism was rooted in the
  transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant (and
  of German Idealism more generally)

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Ralph Henry

• Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were
  important voices in this philosophical movement
  that sought to have individuals "transcend" to a
  higher spiritual level.

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How to be a Transcendentalist

• The individual had to seek spiritual, not
  material, greatness and the essential truths of
  life through intuition.

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Transcendentalism

• Emerson argued for
• a new American culture, freed from European
  bondage
• American Renaissance or Rebirth--intellectual
  and artistic life inextricably bound up with the
  life of the spirit.

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Definition

• In determining the ultimate reality of God, the
  universe, the self, and other important matters,
  one must transcend or go beyond, everyday human
  experience in the physical world. They also
  believe that intuition is an important tool for
  discovering truth.

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Transcendental Beliefs

• Live close to nature
• Dignity of manual labor
• Intellectual companionship
• Spiritual living
• Human beings were divine
• Self-trust and Self-reliance
• Democracy
• Individualism
• Personal relationship to God