Ralph Waldo Emerson And The Transcendentalism Movement

Transcendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement that began in the beginning of the 19th century that believed in links between God, man and nature. This movement said that all of these shared a universal soul and celebrated connections to nature, shown in Ralph Waldo Emerson's text Nature when he wrote "The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable."

The Transcendentalism movement grew out of Unitarianism, which is a religious movement in which it is strongly stood behind the bringings of stability, rational though, and marks of Enlightened Christianity. Unitarianism would try to increase their relevancy by start to instill their values, and eventually

change to adopt more Evangelical views. Young Transcendentalist would start to see unitarianism as lacking and desired a more spiritual experience.
One author who was also a Transcendentalist, and made it very apparent in his writings, was Henry David Thoreau. In Thoreau's Walden, a collection of experiences that he wrote about while living by Walden Pond, he writes "I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antæus." In his bean fields, Thoreau is able to exhibit what Transcendalism is all about, which is an enjoyment and connection to nature which surpasses the material world and enters a spiritual realm. The bean plants grows to represent and connect Thoreau's inner self and the care that he has to have to preserve and tend to his self.
Transcendentalism is a movement that has contributed to great and cherished pieces of literature that couldn't have existed without its fundamental ideas and connections between God, man, and nature.