Examples Of Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism is an American literary movement that occurred during the early 19th century. Essays and poems are the primary literary forms that portray the many important ideas of this movement. In “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson, he encourages people to pursue their own thoughts and plans and to not conform to the standards of society. A new belief system is shown in his other piece, “Nature”, that demonstrates a different perception of the environment from the standard view. Another prominent writer in the Transcendental movement, Henry David Thoreau, shares his ideas about how people should stand by what they believe is right even when the government says otherwise in his essay “Civil Disobedience”. Transcendentalist writers …show more content…

Most people just follow laws because they are the rules created by the government and people are taught to trust the government. But doubt should creep in because “unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?” Thoreau recognizes that not all laws are fair and he asks what will be done to change wrongful laws. Would one continue to follow the law without objection? Or maybe attempt to change it over time but never disobey it? What Thoreau wants others to do is immediately break the law they do not believe in as a way of protesting it. He sees the government as an immoral institution and its citizens as “the mass of men [that] serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies… they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well”. Thoreau believes that the government controls the civilians and uses them for its own benefit, like a tool, with no consideration for their well being. But Thoreau says it is the civilians bringing themselves down to be treated like that; they have to fight back if they want to live differently. Thoreau wants everybody to fight for what they believe is right which is why he wrote “Civil Disobedience”, to share his objective and spread the Transcendental

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