Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language History See also History of New England New England's earliest inhabitants were Algonquian -speaking Native Americans including the It is sometimes called American Transcendentalism to distinguish it from other uses of the word transcendental.

Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. A society is a Population of Humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive Culture and Institutions Intellectualism is any of a number of views regarding the use or development of the Intellect or the practice of being an Intellectual. Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge Massachusetts, in the United States. Among Transcendentalists' core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Spirituality, in a narrow sense concerns itself with matters of the Spirit, a concept closely tied to religious belief and Faith, a transcendent reality

Prominent Transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, as well as Bronson Alcott, Orestes Brownson,William Ellery Channing, Frederick Henry Hedge, Theodore Parker, George Putnam, Elizabeth Peabody, and Sophia Peabody, the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25 1803 &ndash April 27 1882 was an American essayist philosopher poet and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early 19th century Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli (May 23 1810 – July 19 1850 was a Journalist, Critic and Women's rights activist associated with the American Amos Bronson Alcott (November 29 1799 &ndash March 4 1888 was an American teacher and writer Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876 was a New England Intellectual and Activist, preacher labor organizer and finally a prolific Catholic writer This article is about William Ellery Channing the Transcendentalist poet Frederick Henry Hedge ( 1805 - August 21, 1890) was a New England Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist. Theodore Parker (August 24 1810 – May 10 1860 was an American Transcendentalist and reforming minister of the Unitarian George Putnam may refer to George Putnam (newsman (1914&ndash2008 Los Angeles California television newsman George D Elizabeth Palmer Peabody ( May 16, 1804 - January 3, 1894) was an American educator who opened the first English-language Kindergarten Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne ( September 21, 1809 &ndash February 26, 1871) was a painter and Illustrator as well Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4 1804 – May 19 1864 was an American novelist and Short story writer For a time, Peabody and Hawthorne lived at the Brook Farm Transcendentalist utopian commune. Brook Farm was a transcendentalist Utopian experiment that was put into practice by transcendentalist and former Unitarian minister George Ripley Utopia is a name for an ideal community taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by Sir Thomas More describing a fictional Island in the An intentional community is a planned Residential community designed to have a much higher degree of Teamwork than other communities

History

The publication of Emerson's 1836 essay Nature is usually taken to be the watershed moment at which Transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. Nature is a short book by Ralph Waldo Emerson published anonymously in 1836 Emerson wrote in his essay "The American Scholar": "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds . For the publication of Phi Beta Kappa see The American Scholar (magazine " The American Scholar " was a speech given by Ralph . . A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men. Divinity and divine (sometimes 'the Divinity' or 'the Divine' are broadly applied but loosely defined terms used variously within different faiths and belief systems — The soul, according to many religious and philosophical beliefs is the self-awareness, or Consciousness, unique to a particular living " Emerson closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the new idealist philosophy:

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. . . . Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

In the same year, Transcendentalism became a coherent movement with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 8, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals including George Putnam, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederick Henry Hedge. The Transcendental Club was the group of New England intellectuals of the early-to-mid-19th century which gave rise to Transcendentalism. Cambridge Massachusetts is a City in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United States. Events 70 - Roman forces under Titus sack Jerusalem. 1264 - The Statute of Kalisz Year 1836 ( MDCCCXXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap George Putnam may refer to George Putnam (newsman (1914&ndash2008 Los Angeles California television newsman George D Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25 1803 &ndash April 27 1882 was an American essayist philosopher poet and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early 19th century Frederick Henry Hedge ( 1805 - August 21, 1890) was a New England Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist. From 1840, the group published frequently in their journal The Dial, along with other venues. The Dial was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929 The movement was originally termed "Transcendentalists" as a pejorative term, suggesting their position was beyond sanity and reason. ^[1]

The practical aims of the Transcendentalists were varied; some among the group linked it with utopian social change (and, in the case of Brownson, it joined explicitly with early socialism), while others found it an exclusively individual and idealist project. Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876 was a New England Intellectual and Activist, preacher labor organizer and finally a prolific Catholic writer Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Emerson believed the latter. In his 1842 lecture "The Transcendentalist", Emerson suggested that the goal of a purely Transcendental outlook on life was impossible to attain in practice:

You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a Transcendental party; that there is no pure Transcendentalist; that we know of no one but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. Ralph Waldo Emerson 's The Transcendentalist is one of the Essays he wrote while establishing the doctrine of American Transcendentalism. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands. . . . Shall we say, then, that Transcendentalism is the Saturnalia or excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish. Saturnalia is the feast with which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn

Transcendentalists were strong believers in the power of the individual and divine messages. Their beliefs are closely linked with those of the Romantics. The movement directly influenced the growing movement of Mental Sciences of the mid 1800s which would later become known as the New Thought movement. The New Thought Movement or New Thought is a New religious movement developed in the United States during the late 19th century which emphasizes metaphysical New Thought draws directly from the Transcendentalist particularly Emerson. New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father. Ernest Holmes founder of Religious Science church was greatly influenced by Transcendentalism. Ernest Shurtleff Holmes (1887-1960 was the founder of a movement known as Religious Science, also known as "Science of Mind" a part of the New Thought Religious Science, also known as Science of Mind, was founded in 1927 by Ernest Holmes (1887-1960 and is a spiritual/philosophical/metaphysical religious movement

Origins

Transcendentalism was rooted in the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant (and of German Idealism more generally), which the New England intellectuals of the early 19th century embraced as an alternative to the Lockean "sensualism" of their fathers and of the Unitarian church, finding this alternative in Vedic thought, German idealism, and English Romanticism. In Philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey three different but related primary meanings all of them derived from the word's literal Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg German idealism was a philosophical movement in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704 was an English Philosopher. Sensualism or Sensationalism is a philosophical doctrine of the theory of knowledge, according to which Sensations and Perception are basic and Unitarianism as a theology is the belief in the single personality of God in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in one God "Veda" redirects here For other uses see Veda (disambiguation. German idealism was a philosophical movement in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Romanticism is a complex artistic literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the

The Transcendentalists desired to ground their religion and philosophy in transcendental principles: principles not based on, or falsifiable by, sensuous experience, but deriving from the inner, spiritual or mental essence of the human. Immanuel Kant had called "all knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects. " The Transcendentalists were largely unacquainted with German philosophy in the original, and relied primarily on the writings of Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Cousin, Germaine de Staël, and other English and French commentators for their knowledge of it. German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1 Philosophy in the German language or (2 Philosophy by Germans has been extremely diverse and central Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881 was a Scottish essayist satirist and historian whose work was highly influential during the Victorian era. Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 21 October 1772 &ndash 25 July 1834) was an English Poet, Critic and philosopher Victor Cousin ( 28 November 1792 - 13 January 1867) was a French Philosopher. Baronne Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein ( née Necker ( April 22, 1766 &ndash July 14, 1817) (stal commonly known as In contrast, they were intimately familiar with the English Romantics, and the Transcendental movement may be partially described as a slightly later, American outgrowth of Romanticism. Romanticism is a complex artistic literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Another major influence was the mystical spiritualism of Emanuel Swedenborg. (born Emanuel Swedberg; February 8 1688–March 29 1772 was a Swedish Scientist, Philosopher, Christian mystic, and Theologian

Thoreau in Walden spoke of the debt to the Vedic thought directly, as did other members of the movement:

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water-jug. Brahmin ( Brāhmaṇa, sa ब्राह्मणः is the class of educators scholars and preachers in Brahminical Hinduism. Brahma is the Hindu god ( deva) of creation and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. For other meanings see Vishnu (disambiguation. Vishnu ( IAST viṣṇu Devanagari विष्णु (honorific Indra ( Sanskrit: इन्द्र or इंद्र Indra, Malay: Indera, Thai: พระอินทร์ Phra-Intra I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.

Criticism

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a novel, The Blithedale Romance (1852), satirizing the movement, and based it on his experiences at Brook Farm, a short-lived utopian community founded on Transcendental principles. Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4 1804 – May 19 1864 was an American novelist and Short story writer The Blithedale Romance ( 1852) is Nathaniel Hawthorne's third major romance Brook Farm was a transcendentalist Utopian experiment that was put into practice by transcendentalist and former Unitarian minister George Ripley ^[2] Edgar Allan Poe had a deep dislike for Transcendentalism, calling its followers "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common. Edgar Allan Poe (January 19 1809 – October 7 1849 was an American poet, short-story Writer, editor and Literary critic, Boston Common is a central Public park in Boston, Massachusetts. ^[3] He ridiculed their writings in particular by calling them "metaphor-run," lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake. Metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer" is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects Mysticism (from the Greek grc μυστικός mystikos, an initiate of a Mystery religion) is the pursuit of communion with identity "^[4] One of his short stories, "Never Bet the Devil Your Head", is a clear attack on Transcendentalism, which the narrator calls a "disease". " Never Bet the Devil Your Head," often subtitled "A Tale With a Moral" is a Short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe A disease is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions and can be deadly The story specifically mentions the movement and its flagship journal The Dial, though Poe denied that he had any specific targets. ^[5]

Other meanings of transcendentalism

Transcendental idealism

The term transcendentalism sometimes serves as shorthand for "transcendental idealism," which is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and later Kantian and German Idealist philosophers. Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg

Transcendental theology

Further information: Transcendence (religion)

Another alternative meaning for transcendentalism is the classical philosophy that God transcends the manifest world. In Religion, transcendence is a condition or state of being that surpasses physical existence and in one form is also independent of it As John Scotus Erigena put it to Frankish king Charles the Bald in the year 840 A. The Franks or Frankish people (Franci or gens Francorum) were West Germanic tribes first identified in the 3rd century as an Ethnic group Charles the Bald ( 13 June 823 – 6 October 877) Holy Roman Emperor (875–877 as Charles II) and King of West Francia D. , "We do not know what God is. God himself doesn't know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being. "

See also

• Transcendental Generation
• New Thought
• Dark romanticism
• Piano Sonata No. 2 (Ives)

References

External links

• The Transcendentalist, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, A Lecture read at the Masonic Temple, Boston, January, 1842.
• The web of American transcendentalism
• The Transcendentalists
• The American Renaissance and Transcendentalism - from a PBS series
• What Is Transcendentalism?
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Religious overview and comparisons to other religions (use Google html cache)