FREE ESSAY ON TRANSCENDENTALISM

TRANSCENDENTALISM

Transcendentalism was an important movement in literature that occurred during the years
of 1836-1860. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were the best-known
transcendentalists. Ralph Waldo Emerson gave the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, the
credit for making "Transcendentalism" a familiar term. Kant had said that there were
certain experiences that could be acquired only through "intuitions of the mind." In
Kant's thoughts, transcendentalism was the knowledge or understanding a person gains
intuitively. This, for the most part, sums up all of the transcendental writings that
have been written to this day. Both Emerson and Thoreau were very similar in their
thoughts on transcendentalism and personalities. Emerson was very strict on 
his-self and worked to make his writings spiritual. He made it clear that he wanted no
followers. Emerson thought that if anyone were to copy his style of writing that the
whole purpose would be defeated. He wanted his writings to inspire individuality. Thoreau
was rigid and almost military-like. He cared little for group activities, and avoided
organized reform movements. Emerson and Thoreau both wrote about how the world had an
influence on their soul. They let the nature around them be their inspiration, and they
wrote down the effects it had on them spiritually. Ralph Emerson wrote Nature, an essay
about his surroundings, and the effect they had on him. Emerson said, "Its effect is like
that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me,...." This quote came from
Nature, which he wrote in 1836. Henry Thoreau wrote Walden, a book he wrote after keeping
a journal about the nature around him while living at Walden Pond for seven years. Both
of these works were prime examples of transcendentalism and its ideas and philosophies.
After these works were published, writers started interpreting the idea in their own way.
Today, we are still seeing the effects of Emerson and Thoreau in poems and other
literature. The effect that nature has on us is, now, often a common thought among many
of us. Transcendentalism is something we are well aware of because of Emerson and
Thoreau, and their new ideas and theories. 
I am influenced most by transcendentalism when I sit underneath a clear starry sky on a
warm summer evening. When you sit there, you can not help but let your mind wander.
You start to realize how small you are compared to the rest of the world. The stars,
which are, in reality, large and bright, are only a twinkle in the deep blue sky. While
sitting there I take in the peacefulness of the night. You hear the crickets and other
animals of the night and are forced to understand that humans are not alone in the world.
We are accompanied everyday by so many other species, yet we do not pay attention to
anyone but ourselves. I can also see a whole separate meaning and significance of nature,
when I take in everything around me. It is not only our surroundings, but it is much
greater. Nature has been here since the beginning of earth. The true aspects of nature
have always been here. It shows what little amount of time we take up on Earth. We are
nothing but a tiny dot on a never-ending time line of life.