Transcendentalist Beliefs

Transcendentalism was the belief that human senses could only know physical reality. One of their major beliefs was to be original, and to not copy the way someone does something. They also have a strong belief that God, humans, and nature are all spiritually joined in what they call, an oversoul. They believed that if a human wanted to find themselves, they must explore nature. Transcendentalist believed the induvial should be original, have a strong connection with nature, and reach out to their oversoul. Ralph Waldo Emerson led the transcendentalist group. He was a firm believer in originality. He discusses this in the begging of his short story “Self-Reliance”, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your …show more content…
He decided to live in the woods for two years and two months and two days in a cabin he built himself. He done this so that he could find himself. He wrote about his experience in his story called “Walden”. He talks about how he farmed during his time in the woods, and it lead him to make this remark, “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied by the factitious cares and superfluously course labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them” (Thoreau 1414). Henry Thoreau has got to step back and see how much everyone is caught up in worldly things, and tends to forget what good nature has to offer us. It is also discussed that in the summer there is easier way of living, “The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, expect to cook his food, is then unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more various and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half unnecessary” (Thoreau 1418). In this quote he is explaining a way for us to get in touch with nature is to use the privileges of the sun during the hot …show more content…
Everyone is put into groups when he believes that all humans are equal. He states in his story. “Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and a scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. In the divided or social state, these functions are parceled out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work, whilst each other preforms his” (Emerson 1310). He is explaining that man is equal and should be these things instead of waiting for another man to perform his job. He is trying to expand on his thought of human, nature, and God are all joined together with one