“Go alone…refuse the good models, even those most sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Transcendentalism is an American philosophical, religious, political, and literary movement that started in the 19th century. It focused on social experimentation, anti-slavery, anti-capitalism, non-conformity etc. and emphasized spirituality, the natural world, and self-reliance.
Some transcendentalists:
Henry David Thoreau
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Margaret Fuller
Lydia Maria Child
Amos Bronson Alcott
Louisa May Alcott
Frederic Henry Hedge
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody
Theodore Parker
Caroline Sturgis Tappan
Sophia Ripley
Some key markers of the movement was their non-conformist ways of reaching the spiritual and their emphasis on personal ethics over tradition, religion, and government. Their idealism and emphasis on individual ethics was also what lead them to inconsistent theories which inhibited transcendentalism from becoming a philosophy in and of itself.
Related To:
German Romanticism
Unitarianism
Transcendental Idealism
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