When considering the profound impact of the Romanticism movement on literature history, one can see that it allowed humanity to think about its place in society. Yet, all movements evolve toward some end, as did the Romantics, and artists veered toward the Transcendentalist movement. In this post, we will look at the qualities and writers of this new movement within a movement to get a sense of what’s going on.
Background of the Transcendentalist Movement
Old and New Light
To begin, there was conflict. There was a great debate occurring in the 1800s between “New Light” theologians (who valued emotional experiences) and the “Old Light” opponent (who focused on reason). The New Light practitioners felt the lack of intuitive thought within religion should steer individuals forward on their own moral compass. The split from the “Old Light” thinkers created a more spiritual answer to the question of everything.
With this as a bedrock, Transcendentalism began to take shape.
The coming movement included multiple threads of foundation. First, individualism and self-reliance were key. Nature acting as a spiritual guide was important. The innate goodness of humans would prosper. Civil disobedience yielded good outcomes. And, lastly, materialism and industrialization were burdens.
New Ideas and a Club
As such, these new ideas embraced the thoughts of the Romantics, German Romanticism, and Eastern philosophy. Therein, the Transcendentalist movement explored the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. They espoused the ideas of an individual spiritual experience one could attain in their journey to understand God. These writers wanted a more progressive kind of meaning in their religion, which pushed them to write differently, just like other movements before them, including the Neoclassical writers and the Romantics.
Later, ministers from the Unitarian Church, including Emerson, would meet to discuss matters of the evolution into Transcendentalism. This group would form the “The Transcendental Club.” Margaret Fuller, who was the editor of the Transcendentalist journal The Dial, was one of the first members of this club. Ralph Waldo Emerson also wrote in this club. He was writing in Massachusetts in the early 1800s about topics centered on Self-Reliance. Henry David Thoreau, budding author, eventually went off to write Walden: or, Life in the Woods.
Brook Farm and the end of Transcendentalism
Nathaniel Hawthorne would test his mettle, and beliefs, at Brook Farm in Massachusetts, where some of the club took up quarters to start a commune.
“Hawthorne had left his position at the Boston Custom House on January 1, 1841, after a Whig, not a Democrat, was elected president. Although Hawthorne was in search of gainful employment, it seems hard to understand why Hawthorn, a man who was never much of a joiner, never was a member of any church, who cherished his solitude, and who was skeptical of movements to reform society, would have been enticed to join Brook Farm” (hawthorneinsalem.org).
While Hawthorne was eager to head to Brook Farm, Thoreau never became enticed and Emerson refused to live there—but he did visit on occasion. Hawthorne thought it was the perfect place to practice Transcendentalist beliefs to see if they would hold true in application.
Eventually, issues of longevity arose due to conflicts of ideals and intellect, and Brooke farm fell apart. Hawthorne “misjudged both himself and the situation” as “he couldn’t write there. Nor could he tolerate the idea of a cold winter far from (his wife).” Yet, it was an interesting experiment of labor and spirituality, of man and earth, and one’s ability to coexist with intuitive beliefs.
Around 1850, the Transcendentalist movement waned after the death of Margaret fuller, who was one of the progenitors of the movement. The failure of Brook Farm also lent itself to the movements closure. These two blows illustrated the problems of combining idealism, application, and hubris.
Example of Transcendentalism
For context, here is the first stanza of Emerson’s “Ode to Beauty.” This should give you an idea of how Transcendentalism functions:
“Who gave thee, O Beauty,
The keys of this breast,–
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say, when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old;
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Though intimate stranger,
Though latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born, we are melting
Into nature again.”Ode to Beauty
Conclusion
The Transcendentalist movement would encourage other movements to take hold in the future. These movements included abolitionism, feminism, environmentalism, and civil disobedience during the Civil Rights movement. Similarly, the movement impacted future writers, like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, and gave way to the Realism movement.
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