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Transcendentalism and the New England Renaissance

            The New England Renaissance was a time where America was peeling away from its European roots in order to establish an identity of its own. The new country was proving itself to the rest of the world, not only by its differing government, but in its society as well. The nation strongly supported freedom if each and every person and this influenced society to think in new ways. While most people looked out on life from inside the box of society, transcendentalists were a small fraction of society that put their thoughts outside of the box so they could look in. This group of people separated themselves from the norm of society in order to think about daily life in a new light and go past just using their five senses to form conclusions. Some well known transcendentalists include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. During this time period, by practicing an individualistic lifestyle, transcendentalists demonstrated that Americans lacked self-sufficiency. .
             While writing their essays, transcendentalists focused on the individual and their actions in society. Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson expresses this idea in his essay, Self Reliance. Throughout this piece, Emerson presents the motif of self-sufficiency. He goes on to talk about how it is not only important for an individual to be self-sufficient, but this idea must be carried over into society as well. Emerson says, "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -that is genius" (Self Reliance). He explains that a smart person is one who trusts their opinions and decisions based on the answer in their own heart. This means that an intelligent person doesn't get influenced by society to form their thoughts and is able to think on their own. Emerson says that Americans need to be able to trust themselves in order to be genius, and therefore, self-sufficient.


Essays Related to Transcendentalism and the New England Renaissance

1. The New England Renaissance and its Impact on Literature

... industrialization led him to regard the hope and optimism of transcendentalism. This new belief influenced literature in New England. "Romanticism assumed a predominantly moral and philosophical tone, the former having its foundations in the persistence of Puritan idealism."" (Swisher 93). Romanticism was awakened but it took up a different point of view during the New England Renaissance. The time period produced a new type of romanticism. It was romantic, intuitive, and mystical. Hawthorne saw the New England Renaissance as a time in which people ... experienced intense individualism ...

  • Word Count: 996
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. New england renaissance

... time of the Renaissance in New England. This period of time was bursting with different literatures that were done by Transcendentalists, Anti-Transcendentalists, and Fireside Poets. Many authors showed their philosophies and concerns of life, nature's relationship with the human behavior and spirit, along with its potential destructiveness, morals, or deliver to readers their dark vision of the world through ... and all the charm it has and how the beauty of it falls to the nature around. Emerson describes the beauty of the natural surroundings, pointing out that the "Power" that made ...

  • Word Count: 501
  • Approx Pages: 2

3. Literature - American Renaissance and Romantic

... instead, significantly influenced by the popular literature of the period. See, in particular, David S. Reynolds's Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville, written in 1989. Reynolds points out that a subversive literature existed prior to the work of the major authors of the American Renaissance, in the form of sensational crime ... the Jacksonian Era and the Civil War. This was a period of significant westward expansion, as well as one of significant political turmoil, particularly as the conflict over slavery came to a boil. Signi...

  • Word Count: 917
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. Nathaniel Hawthorne

... good friends of two Transcendentalist writers of the period -- Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. He also taught the only other Anti-Transcendentalist writer of his period -- Herman Melville. His most popular book, The Scarlet Letter, earned Hawthorne international fame. The period of time during which Hawthorne wrote was the New England Renaissance in America. By the year 1840, it was clear that the American experiment in Democracy had succeeded ... ." There were two types of writing styles during Hawthorne's life -- Transcendentalism and Anti-Transcendentalism. Many of the au...

  • Word Count: 855
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

5. A Mirror for Greatness: Six Great Americans

... have been found in many intellectual movements "Platonism, Neoplatonism, Puritanism, Renaissance poetry, mysticism, idealism, skepticism, and romanticism. His prose style was active, simple, and economical. His first book, Nature (1836), was received with some enthusiasm, particularly by the young people of his day. The book expressed the main principles of a new philosophical movement called transcendentalism. Soon after its publication, a discussion group was formed with Emerson as its ... his most enduring prose. In "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," and "The Over-Soul," he stated his...

  • Word Count: 3135
  • Approx Pages: 13
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

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