Entertainment / Literature / Transcendentalism: Transcendentalism is an American philosophical, religious, and literary movement roughly equivalent to the Romantic movement in England (see Romanticism). The transcendentalist philosophy is not systematic or sharply defined, but it generally stresses individual intuition and conscience, and it holds that nature reveals the whole of God's moral law. It suggests that ultimate truth can be discovered by a human's inmost feelings. It argues for morality guided by personal conscience rather than religious dogma or the laws of a society. Human nature in this philosophy is basically good if humans are allowed to pursue their normal desires in a natural and wholesome environment, an idea that contrasts sharply with Calvinist doctrines like total depravity. Transcendentalism also suggests the presence of an 'Over-Soul,' the Emersonian sense that humanity collectively has a defining spirit. Transcendental philosophy has had a profound effect on the American psyche, including the idea of independent, do-it-yourself self-reliance, the rejection of conformity, and a deep love of nature, much as the Romantic period influenced England. Traces of its voice--albeit somewhat muted--appear in the counter-cultural rhetoric of the 1960s and in ecological writings of the late twentieth-century. In the Christian religious tradition, the transcendentalist philosophy was a powerful influence on the growth of the modern Unitarian Church. To see how transcendentalism fits in with other literary movements and time-periods, click here to download a PDF handout that places the literary periods in chronological order. (Latin trans + ascendere, 'to climb beyond')
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