1. Transcendentalists The third wave of Romanticism

2. Transcendentalism  Philosophy based on Romanticism, which is based on stressing feeling and imagination over Reason and formal rules.  Sponsored primarily by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who absorbed it from English writers Carlyle, & Coleridge, and German writer Göthe.  Very popular and prevalent in New England.

3. Transcendentalism  Key members of the movement called themselves the “Transcendental Club.” –This was an informal organization of leading transcendentalists living in or near Boston, MA. –First met in 1836, and called themselves “the Symposium.” –Chiefly interested in new developments in theology, philosophy and literature. –Called this interest the “New Thought” of the day.

4. Transcendentalism  Key Members of the club –Ralph Waldo Emerson – essayist, poet, scholar –Henry David Thoreau – essayist, poet –Margaret Fuller – editor of The Dial –George Ripley – ran “Brook Farm” –Amos Bronson Alcott –Frederick Henry Hedge

5. Transcendentalist Philosophy  They believed in living close to nature.  Through Nature, higher truths are revealed.  They believed in the dignity of manual labor.  They felt the need for intellectual companionships and interests.  They placed great emphasis on the importance of spiritual living – the contemplative life.  People’s relationship with God is a personal matter, and should be established by the individual rather than through a ritualistic church.

6. Transcendentalist Philosophy  They argued strongly for the essential divinity of humanity, and one great brotherhood.  Believed in Democracy and Individualism  Believed humans can intuitively transcend the limits of the senses and of logic, and directly receive higher truths and greater knowledge denied to more mundane methods of knowing (science, theology).