home

__TRANSCENDENTALISM- The "New England Renaissance"__

"We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds...A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men." - Ralph Waldo Emerson The Simple Definition: Transcendentalism is a social reform movement in which new beliefs of how knowledge is found, was incorporated into American Literature.

- It was a time where literary independence came about. People deliberately went about creating literature that were very different from any literature that was created in England, France, Germany, or any other European nation.

- Enlightenment- a time where rational conclusions about the natural world that were made by observation and reason, was accepted over religious ideas. - It relates to the Enlightenment because both included believing that ideas should be based on reason, which clearly went against religion and other literature from European nations.