Romantic Beliefs Of Transcendentalism

The first important theme of the American Romantics is idealism. Idealism is a recurring theme throughout the American Romantic times, because the way people of this time felt it was their duty to help one another. Due to the Romantics humanitarian beliefs, many people, such as Dorothea Dix and Horace Mann, stood up for unjust and unfair rules for the betterment of society. The first romanticist to fight for a utopian society was Horace Mann. Mann fought to improve public education which at this time was a huge concern because of how the education system was religious based more than academic focused ("Political and Social Milestones"137). Mann believed that education was important for future generations, so he created six key principles to reform the school system. These principles state freedom cannot be maintained by ignorance, the public should help make education affordable, and only trained professionals should be allowed to teach (Horace Mann). Furthermore, Dorothea Dix was another romantic who

These lines from ‘Tintern Abbey’, according me, summarize the very spirit of Romanticism in a nutshell. Sages who excel in theoretical knowledge are seen to be incompetent with respect to what the Nature has in offering. The latter was the only and true source of inspiration, and the poet figure who was also the “the unauthorized legislature of the world”, was considered to be divinely gifted due to his acute understanding of the natural world, much in contrast to the figure of the Enlightenment scholar, who exceled in the knowledge of books.

The romantic movement swept across Europe during the nineteenth century. Poets, artists, and musicians at this time encompassed romanticism’s characteristics into their works. These documents will help to gain a better understanding of the characteristics through analysis and explanation. Romanticism is significant due to its characteristics of emotional exuberance, unrestrained imagination, and spontaneity in both artistic and personal life.

Romanticism in the early years of America explored contrasting interpretations such as insight and feeling over rationalist views consisting of science and civilization. American Romantic writers reject rationalism due to the fact that they believe that intuition and imagination yield greater truths. Specifically, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson, being two of the many writers that demonstrate romantic ideas, incorporate the fundamentals of nature into their works to display themes about life that they suppose the rational mind fails to detect. Longfellow as well as Emerson utilize the power of nature in order to illustrate distinct truths regarding life.

The transcendentalists thought that individuality and self-reliance was true. For example Emerson says in his essay from self-reliance to “speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense”. This means that you need to stop holding what you are holding back from saying and just say what you want to say. Theses song help represent that.

Ever since its creation, the United States of America has given people the opportunity to speak and practice their own philosophies and religion. As a prime example, transcendentalism is a philosophical and literary movement that gained followers during 1836-1860 that encouraged social reform, self-transformation, and people to rise above their immediate experiences. Developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and lived by Henry David Thoreau, the essence of transcendentalism was to live life with simplicity and to elevate intuition and imagination over logical reasoning. However in today’s society, true transcendentalism is irrelevant and cannot be practiced.

After the American Revolution people were inspired to create their own identity separate from England, some people wanted something different from the traditional Age of Reason. Transcendentalism is a branch of Romanticism that began in Germany, it’s beliefs are separated into three topics nature, individualism, and optimism. They believed nature is where one could reach the highest level of spirituality. Individualism is where they believed in nonconforming and rejecting society’s beliefs. Lastly optimism where beliefs that people are naturally good and they were convinced of the essential goodness of life. The song “Call It What You Want” by Foster The People is a great example of aspects of Transcendentalism, though this song mostly focuses

Romanticisim was a movement in literature and art which lasted from about 1789-1870 in Europe, North America and Latin America .The rising of Romanticism is associated with the Industrial Revolution, or with the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.Especially, the Industrial Revolution led to some technological and socio-economic-cultural changes at that period in the Europe. As a matter of fact that these changes invited to people to use of natural sources and the mass production of manufactured goods ,mankind obtained new skills and became a machine operator who was dependent on factory.After all,having control over nature and the ability of using resources gave a confidence to humanity.Thus,Romanticism was born as a reaction to mechanization of human life by evoking the emotional side of human and falsifiying reality.Moreover, by the virtue of the French Revolution, a morality remanding of the peaceful nature of man emerged and it prompted to Romanticists to use emotion over reason.Romantics hold the belief that not everything can be explained by reason and relying on science can not answer the questions of life. The essence of Romanticism basically has the spirit of the individualism and nature. It turns thumbs up on the idea that natural world is the origin of positive and good emotions. It is important to note that for nature symbolizes a reflection of their own soul and the ideal life that based on the meaning of their dreams for Romantics.

American Transcendentalism was highly inspired by Romanticism, and therefore they have many similarities. However, there are some differences, especially in their ideas of religion and God. The American Transcendentalist period took place in the mid 19th century. It began around 1836 and lasted to roughly 1860. Romanticism occurred much earlier, around the end of the 18th century, but was mostly dominant around 1840. Both philosophies were very similar to each other since the two movements were a reaction against the contemporary strict traditions, laws, and religious rules. They both placed a huge emphasis on the individual as well as inspiration from nature. In the following, I will discuss American Transcendentalism and Romanticism in relation to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay ‘The American Scholar’ and Walt Whitman’s poem ‘Song of Myself’.

Topic chosen for my research is based on romanticism and nature. Romanticism and nature are almost of same meaning to each other. Romanticism (also the romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. To set a typical example we can take it as romantic lyric which suggest a mystical relationship with nature. Many romantic poets has its ability to connect romanticism with nature through their expression of love, imagination and his experience in a natural setting to go beyond his/her everyday life. Some of those poets such as William Wordsworth,

Literature has been a constant expression of artistic emotion throughout history. Over the course of the years, Literature has developed and changed due to America’s evolution. These changing time periods can be classified into 9 eras: Colonial, Revolutionary, Romantic, Transcendental, Realism, Modern, Harlem Renaissance, Beat Generation, and Postmodern. Throughout the changing history, new literary eras have begun in response to previous eras and events. American Literature has changed over time by adapting previous values, beliefs, and literary characteristics when a new era presents itself; this progression is due to changing societal views in

The Romantic Period was an artistic, literary movement that started in Europe at the end of the 18th century. The Romantic movement was partly a reaction to the industrial revolution that dominated at that time; it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.

What is Romanticism? In The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal (1948), F.L. Lucas defines Romanticism in 11396 kinds of ways. However, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Romanticism is only defined as a period of time during the late 18th and early 19th century where people valued emotions over reasons. Romanticism is a movement originated from Europe and slowly spread throughout the world. This philosophy is created as a reaction to Neoclassicism, Industrial Revolution, and Enlightenment. Romanticism had great influences over artworks, including literature and paintings. The Romantic authors often presented values and characters of Romanticism in their writings. Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson,

The Romantic period believed that emotion was a form of intelligence, and art was a path to transcendence. As a result of the change in beliefs, Romantic poetry is often characterized by nature, imagination, memory, and wisdom. Imagination acts as a source of creativity, and allows us to see what is not immediately apparent. The Romantics believed that we could discover the imagination in nature, which often resulted in a harmony of the two. However, there are times when nature and imagination are in conflict with each other; for example, when imagination acts as an illusion, and distracts us from confronting the issue.

Nature is one of the most powerful and mysterious forces of the universe that influences man greatly. Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of nature and soul. It controls all the living, non-living, human, non-human, organic, inorganic and visible, invisible things. It rules over the universe like a monarch and man can’t escape from the influence of nature; he is influenced by both nature and culture. To man nature is the pure and original source of happiness. He forgets all his inevitable and depressing and sorrowful conditions in the delightful company of nature. It also developed man’s sense of beauty. It fills man’s heart with heavenly pleasure with he can’t get anywhere under the sun. In the presence of nature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Every bit of alternation in the atmosphere in nature gives man happiness. At the same time, nature as a teacher teaches man to accept all the changes in life. It also motivates man. In the world of literature nature plays a very role to set the mood of the text. The creative artist uses nature to reveal both comic and tragic aspects of human life. Nature itself acts as one the most dominating characters in text which exercises its powerful impression upon the character. It helps to expose their inner and abstract feelings which can’t be understood by the common reader. It can repair all disgrace and calamity in the life of man. In the presence of nature all mean egotism of man vanishes