Transcendentalism: Henry David Thoreau And Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Transcendentalism was initiated by a group of men with various backgrounds bringing literary and philosophical ideas came to life in Boston. America had not yet celebrated its 100th anniversary and was looking for its literary identity. Two of the three main leaders of transcendentalism were Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Puritans Platonism and Neoplatonism, Kantian metaphysics, romanticism, and orientalism and were all major sources of influence on transcendentalism writing. The Puritans and Kantian metaphysics encouraged thinking beyond physical life. Platonism and Neoplatonism is philosophical, which encouraged the transcendentalists to have the element of philosophy in their writings. Romanticism was defiant and goes along …show more content…

Emerson made this abundantly clear when he stated, “society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder,” (Emerson2 par. 6). Emerson realized how society was becoming conditioned to be the same, no one spoke out or broke free. Transcendentalism was about discovery and a nonconforming to find what is new. Without change the world stays the same. “Self-Reliance” explains this best: “With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do,” (Emerson2 par. 14). To be consistent caused a lack of new information and ideas and is why people needed to “go against the grain” of society. Conformity was constantly pushed upon the American people, but the need for new ideas and perspectives was realized and could only be accomplished by the refusal to become part of the mainstream …show more content…

Society became a mob and everyone needs to get themselves out. It has been pointed out that men “serve the state not as men, but as machines, with their bodies,” indicating the severity of the effects of conformity (Thoreau1 392). No one else had the audacity to use their life to go against the main way of living like Thoreau did. To let others know what they should be doing with their lives, he allowed himself to be locked in jail. This emphasized his main point, “Let your life be a counter-friction to the machine,” (Thoreau1 393). He truly knew what it meant to use your life to accomplish something. Transcendentalists often used their life to go against the state and succeed with their goal, to go show others and go against the state

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