Examples Of Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism, a literary movement influenced by the romantic era, encouraged the idea of finding and understanding oneself in order to understand the world. The Transcendentalist advocated soul searching in order to find ‘infinite knowledge’/truth about the universe and yourself, understanding the influences of education, and doing what you believe is right despite what those around you may think. The works of Thoreau (Walden and Civil Disobedience) and Emerson (The American Scholar and Self Reliance) are great examples of these practices.
In his The American Scholar Emerson says, “The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar, is, the mind of the Past,- in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that …show more content…
In Self-Reliance Emerson says, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” This small quote alone could summarize the process of looking inside to find yourself. The iron string is the voice that lies in the back of your mind, it’s the conscious that tells you when something is wrong, it is that tug that takes you to the place where you feel you are destined to be. Trusting yourself is just the first step to being one with yourself and the universe. Though in Thoreau’s Walden it is stated that looking may not be all that needs to be done, “Still we live meanly, like ants; thought the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men.” Yes, we look into ourselves and believe we have found an answer, but finding yourself isn’t enough. This type of thinking is what causes us, the human race, to work/follow like ants do their queen. Yes, like ants, we find out special niches in the colony, but we have no will to do what we feel we should because we’ve stopped at finding ourselves, we look into the textbooks given to us and assume we now know everything. Yet, because our standards, our society tells us that we are now grown men and women because we have our roles in society and we’ve learned what’s in the textbooks we believe we understand
In his The American Scholar Emerson says, “The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar, is, the mind of the Past,- in whatever form, whether of literature, of art, of institutions, that …show more content…
In Self-Reliance Emerson says, “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” This small quote alone could summarize the process of looking inside to find yourself. The iron string is the voice that lies in the back of your mind, it’s the conscious that tells you when something is wrong, it is that tug that takes you to the place where you feel you are destined to be. Trusting yourself is just the first step to being one with yourself and the universe. Though in Thoreau’s Walden it is stated that looking may not be all that needs to be done, “Still we live meanly, like ants; thought the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men.” Yes, we look into ourselves and believe we have found an answer, but finding yourself isn’t enough. This type of thinking is what causes us, the human race, to work/follow like ants do their queen. Yes, like ants, we find out special niches in the colony, but we have no will to do what we feel we should because we’ve stopped at finding ourselves, we look into the textbooks given to us and assume we now know everything. Yet, because our standards, our society tells us that we are now grown men and women because we have our roles in society and we’ve learned what’s in the textbooks we believe we understand