Ralph Waldo Emerson's Beliefs Of Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism is not a word that can be defined. It is a concept brought about by various writers to include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The world has dramatically changed since their time period, making it an interesting topic to debate upon what they would think of today’s society. Their opinions on whether they supported current culture would definitely vary, depending on the topic at hand. Customs such as technology, going to school, and going to Mass weekly would spark strong opinions in the minds of people like Emerson and Thoreau, and their thoughts would gather around transcendentalist ideas and principles.

American currencies, specifically coins, have two sides: a head and a tail. The head and tail are different, yet they are still part of the same coin. Two American authors, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, represent two sides of the same coin: Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism swept through America as a new worldview in the 1900’s. Transcendentalism is a philosophy that asserts the primacy of the spiritual and transcendental over the material, that deals with aspects of nature. Men committed their lives to the study of nature. Nature became a religion. Emerson, a transcendental optimist, claimed that each person is inherently good. Hawthorne, a transcendental pessimist, demanded that man was corrupt and inherently evil. Emerson

Christopher McCandless, a 29-year-old dreamer, went on the journey of a lifetime to involve himself with nature and being truly independent. He had lived a life of privilege, made amazing grades in school, and even went to school at Emory College, getting degrees in both history and anthropology. Even though he seemed to have everything good going for him, it’s not the life he wanted. McCandless decides after law school to go deep into the “wild”, with no map, no resources. All he kept was a small journal and camera in which he captured and recorded all of his experiences in, allowing people for the rest of time to read and learn about his journey in his book titled Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer. This impulsive decision that McCandless made would soon cost him his life, and most people would see him as being crazy for it. A man named Shaun Callarman, for example, believed that he “ had no Common sense. . . he was just plain crazy.” I disagree with this statement, however, and believe that Christopher had a very transcendentalist view on life,agreeing with most all of the great Henry David Thoreau and his ideals, but just made a few careless mistakes that would have been the difference between life and death.

Transcendentalism Essay The ideals and structures of the society we live in today clearly contrast with the core ideals of Henry David Thoreau. We rely on seemingly everything but ourselves for information, and we have trampled upon the nature that was so valued by Thoreau.

Henry David Thoreau is one of the primary promoters of the transcendentalist movement and has been inspiring people to take on the transcendentalist lifestyle ever since the mid 1800’s. Mccandless was an admirer of Henry’s philosophy but he wasn’t as fully immersed in his work and ideals as Thoreau was to his own. His intentions were not as closely aligned to the movement as Thoreau’s and the difference between these icons are clearly visible.

In this essay I am explaining how the four authors: Michael Donovan, Emerson, Thoreau, and Krakauer’s transcendental beliefs are similar. To me transcendental means your own belief and the way you see life. Michael, author of “It’s All-On-Me” says in his poem, “looks like it's time to up and start mounting a game-plan attack” he is saying everything is going wrong and needs a plan to make it all better again so Michael is going to find the best way for himself to feel better. Michael Donovan is very similar in a way with these authors, they are very independent and kind of stubborn in a way that these differences make them alike.

The song “Brave,” by Sara Bareilles strongly relates to this quote by Emerson. Throughout this song there are many lyrics that go along with the Transcendentalism philosophy. For example, when Sara says, “You can be amazing… you can be the outcast… or you can start speaking up.” This relates back to Transcendentalism because they highly believe in being able to be yourself and not let other people bring you down. By being amazing, you need to speak what you believe and not care what society thinks. Another example is, “Say what you wanna say and let the words fall out.” By doing this you’re not going to conform and say what people want you to say. You’re being yourself and letting people know you’re not going to conform and say what you believe

Henry David Thoreau is one of the most influential, and most brilliant people to ever walk on the face of the earth. He embodies the transcendentalist ideas that many of the most famous writers in the world share. Transcendentalism is the philosophy of looking at every person as an individual and how important and divine each soul truly is. The way that the world in the middle 1800’s, the time in which Thoreau was in his prime for writing, was that a person learned from his encounters and how that individual reacted to it. Transcendentalists believed in the spirituality of the world in order learn new things: “They rejected the widely accepted notion that man’s knowledge came primarily through the senses. To the contrary, they believed in

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a renowned transcendentalist, shared many universal truths during the period of Transcendentalism, which further advocated the ideals of the period. This maxim in particular expresses that your own identity and perspective of the world is what is most important in the end. Emerson states that nothing is as important as you, regarding the path you choose and the ideals you create for yourself. In other words, Emerson encourages people to not succumb to society's expectations of who a person should be, but instead live a lifestyle you desire to live.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”- Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalism is an American philosophy that revolves around self-reliance and independence, commonly in nature, a Transcendentalist wants to find the true meaning in life. I believe that Chris McCandless was a Transcendentalist because he was able to leave his whole life behind and take on a minimalist lifestyle while having a strong relationship with god. However, I believe that I am not a Transcendentalist, but simply an adventurer.

In Transcendentalist thought the self centers itself in reality; every object external produces of the self that takes its reality from our inner selves. Self-reliance thus refers to the way the natural world and humankind rely on oneself to exist. Thoreau supports the transcendentalist ideal of living simply throughout his essay, Walden. The ideals of transcendentalism refer to the thought of living simply by omitting all of the unnecessary items that are not essential to our survival.

Transcendentalism is a highly competitive world of the market revolution which strongly encouraged the identification of American freedom without any restraints on people who were seeking financial improvement and personal development. It was a world in which regional developments along with the market revolution crushed traditional and social borders. For example moving from one place to another was a common characteristic of the American life. Transcendentalism believed in individual judgment over existing social traditions and institutions.

Transcendentalism is a major romantic movement during the 19th century. It was a period of romance where people learned to love themselves. The poem Self-Reliance, is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. In this excerpt, he emphasizes the traits of being a transcendentalist. The selection Tia Chucha, is by Luis Rodriguez.

They will follow the steps of Emerson in “Self-Reliance”, Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience”, and the theme of the film Dead Poets Society. Within the writings of these authors there are both benefits and consequences of living self-reliant and “sucking the marrow out of life”. One of the main ideas for Transcendentalism is “Self-Reliance” a step by step writing by Ralph Emerson. Emerson explains having trust and confidence in yourself, he explains controlling your emotions and speaking your voice.

Transcendentalist writers were focused on the belief of the divinity of the individual soul, the inner voice, (Crawford, Kern & Needleman, 1961) to overcome social stereotypes and to avoid conformity. It is highlighted the importance to return to nature to enhance the quality of humans beings by living simply since being apart of common social rules is the only way to be in communion with nature’s wisdom. Those transcendental characteristics could be seen in Emerson’s ¨self-reliance¨ or Thoreau’s ¨Walden ¨ bearing in mind that although, Emerson’s ¨Self-reliance¨ adheres more descriptive examples to illustrate metaphors and Thoreau’s ¨Where I lived and what I lived for¨ introduces metaphors creating much more imagery, both make a critique of the modern individual using