Transcendentalism1

The writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson dealt with three aspects of transcendental thought, which consisted of spiritual, philosophical, and literary content. In his time, Emerson imparted an influence upon his contemporaries and American literature. He explicitly encouraged other writers by his appeal for new American literature and new voices because America had failed to denounce European literature and produce its own literary scholarship. Emerson believed that literature should have a spiritual influence because of personal religious convictions. Also, he thought philosophy could espouse essential forms through which the mind itself quantified. Finally, Emerson believed that literary authenticity played an integral part in the formation of American literature. Because Emerson realized America needed to develop its own literary works, he perpetuated the transcendentalist movement to sculpture American literature through spirituality, philosophy, and literary content.

In religion, it was post-Unitarian and freethinking, and he articulated it in his "Divinity School Address".

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Emerson asserted that scholars needed to be self-reliant through the powers of human intuition. He articulates how the United States of America demanded and deserved a new literature, and that this literature would speak about and to the American people. His resolution was audacious:

Let me admonish you, first of all, to go alone;

to refuse the good models, even those which are

sacred in the imagination of men, and date to

love God without mediator or veil. The study of letters shall be no longer

a name for pity, for doubt, and for sensual

indulgence.

Nature, Emerson's first book, reinforces the philosophical concepts of the movement. The controversy of Emerson's thinking directly addressed the Christian Church. The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Emerson used "The American Scholar" as an address designed at stimulating American men and women of letters as individuals and as a nation:

We have listened too long to the courtly muses of

Europe. Jesus Christ in Emerson's retrospection was a miraculous authority, but he asserted that the Christian Church erred by exaggerating the miracles of Jesus and the confinement of revelation. "

Therefore, Emerson uses nature as a catalyst for his transcendentalist movement. His reasoning for this outcry is the dependency America continued to have on European literature. The book is an attempt to answer the proactive question on the first page, "Let us inquire, to what end is nature?" "Language," one of Emerson's desired chapters, indoctrinates his logical thesis of Nature saying:

1. By embracing natural history in terms of literary and spiritual ends, Emerson's work suggests that American literature can greatly be inspired by America's nature.

Approximate Word count = 734
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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