American transcendentalism

Transcendentalism is a 19th-century school of American theological and philosophical thought that combined respect for nature and self-sufficiency with elements of Unitarianism and German Romanticism. Writer Ralph Waldo Emerson was the primary practitioner of the movement, which existed loosely in Massachusetts in the early s before becoming an organized group in the s.

American transcendentalism authors

Transcendentalism has its origins in New England of the early s and the birth of Unitarianism. Various philosophies began to swirl around this crowd, and the ideas that would become Transcendentalism split from Unitarianism over its perceived rationality and instead embraced German Romanticism in a quest for a more spiritual experience.

Thinkers in the movement embraced ideas brought forth by philosophers Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge , ancient Indian scripture known as the Vedas and religious founder Emanuel Swedenborg. Transcendentalists advocated the idea of a personal knowledge of God, believing that no intermediary was needed for spiritual insight.

They embraced idealism, focusing on nature and opposing materialism. By the s, literature began to appear that bound the Transcendentalist ideas together in a cohesive way and marked the beginnings of a more organized movement. The purpose was to follow up on correspondence between Hodge and Emerson and to talk about the state of Unitarianism and what they could do about it.

This was a meeting of a much larger group that included many Unitarian ministers, intellectuals, writers and reformers. The only rule the meetings followed was that no one would be allowed to attend if their presence prevented the group from discussing a topic.