Ralph Waldo Emerson's Theory Of The Transcendentalist

A group of logical thinkers called the American Transcendentalists existed in the time lasting only roughly 20-30 years from the 1830s to the 1860’s, but the ideas of these philosophers in this particular era proved to be extremely unique. They focused on answering questions of the unknown and providing a deeper understanding of man and the universe. The Transcendentalist theories and ideas might have made a valid point in the 1800’s and actually made sense to follow through with and understand, however this concept does not seem to have a stable place in the world today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a key thinker and philosopher of a group known as the American Transcendentalists. He published a book called Nature in 1836 based on his other journals, sermons, and lectures. In this book, his main focus is on how “the universe is composed of nature and the soul.” He defines nature as the essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. The message he carries out to the readers is in his quote, “to go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.” Emerson declares in

He enjoys the idea of the freshness of not becoming materialistic and more pure by creating his own journey to finding himself by hitch hiking all the way to Alaska where he decides to make a living off of killing animals to eat and enjoying the environment and air around him. McCandless, living in this lifestyle, eventually ate the wrong seeds of a plant that turned him too weak to go hike or hunt, leading to his eventual death due to starvation. McCandless seemed to have been either extremely unprepared for what was to come and unnecessarily enthusiastic about this lifestyle, or just about digging his own