2. Transcendentalism

3. Transcendentalism... is “a loose collection of eclectic ideas about literature, philosophy, religion, social reform, and the general state of American culture”. flourished in Concord and Boston during the 19 th Century. had a dramatic and lasting impact on American literature and culture.

4. Major Tenets The individual is important, inherently good, and has free will. Conscience, intuition, and morality are present at birth. “Truth” about the universe and mankind’s place in it lies beyond our physical senses. Individuals must use their intuition to “transcend” sensory knowledge to perceive this truth.

5. Basic Belief System self-reliance self-discipline individuality simplicity

6. Transcendentalism's Influence Then & Now Abolition (Anti-Slavery Movement) Utopianism (Creation of a perfect society) Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights Environmentalism Civil Rights Movement (Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.) American Literature (Emily Dickinson and F. Scott Fitzgerald)

7. Major Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau

8. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion: it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is one in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the integrity of the soul.” – Self-Reliance

10. Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps he hears a different drummer.” – Walden