Transcendentalism
- Part of the Romantic Movement
- Protest against America’s continued cultural dependence upon Europe
- Believed that people were the spiritual center of the universe.
- In people were clues to nature.
- Truth came from intuition and imagination
- Believed that America was becoming too materialistic, that it needed literary independence, and that society could only be reformed after the individual.
- Influences on Transcendentalism:
- Platonic philosophy
- Revolt against Unitarianism (Unitarianism focuses on basic good nature of humankind, on Jesus as human rather than divine.)
- Romanticism
- Orientalism (Eastern Philosophies)