What is Transcendentalism?
Transcendentalism is the philosophical idea or concept that an individual can reach their full potential by rising above societal norms, stereotypes and limitations. Transcendentalism encompasses the beliefs that materialism and conformity suppress our connection with nature and finding ourselves. The works of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson shaped Transcendental views. In Self Reliance, Emerson explains that one should seek to be different and create their own journey, rather than follow another's. "There is time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse.." (Emerson.183) Emerson also explains a lust to venture in the natural world and reconnect ourselves in his work, Nature. "In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than I do in the streets or villages"(Emerson. 181) His feeling of balance within nature signifies the affects it has as an escape from a busy world. Thoreau defines the characteristic of rejecting materialism and taking what life has to offer in Walden, when he says "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan like.." (Thoreau. 205) Thoreau wants to work hard for the delicacy of life in his metaphor with marrow. He wants to live minimalistic and use only what he needs similar to the Greek Spartans. All three examples define traits of Transcendentalism, the intention to levitate above society's pressures and live life to the fullest.
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