Post I Transcendentalism Overview

Transcendentalism is a very large idealistic, philosophical, and social idea. Transcendentalism was Influenced by romanticism. It showed that nature and humanity were truly the world if you chose to live that way and rise above society and truly experience the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were very important figures in transcendentalism. Optimism, intuition, idealism, and individualism are the main ideas in transcendentalism. In Self Reliance, Emerson explains that individuals should live their life disregarding society and its influence. “Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.” (Emerson) In his writing Walden, Thoreau says “We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” (Thoreau) Thoreau wanted to experience life when living off of nature alone. Both Emerson and Thoreau wanted to share with others how to truly experience life to the fullest.