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{{Short description|19th century US philosophical movement}}
{{About|the 19th-century American movement|other uses|Transcendence (disambiguation)}}
{{Spirituality-sidebar}}

'''Transcendentalism''' is a philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the [[New England]] region of the [[United States]].<ref name="Stanford">{{cite encyclopedia |first=Russell |last=Goodman |year=2015 |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/ |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |title=Transcendentalism |access-date=7 November 2007 |archive-date=11 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100711124255/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/ |url-status=live }} "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson."</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism |editor-first=Tiffany K. |editor-last=Wayne |year=2006 |publisher=Facts On File's Literary Movements |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hckauAdkix0C |isbn=9781438109169 |access-date=16 October 2016 |archive-date=8 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240208234812/https://books.google.com/books?id=hckauAdkix0C |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite dictionary |title=Transcendentalism |dictionary=Merriam Webster |year=2016 |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcendentalism |access-date=17 October 2016 |archive-date=28 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128101748/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcendentalism |url-status=live }}"a philosophy which says that thought and spiritual things are more real than ordinary human experience and material things"</ref> A core belief is in the inherent [[good]]ness of people and nature,<ref name="Stanford" /> and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the [[Individualism|individual]], people are at their best when truly "[[self-Reliance|self-reliant]]" and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in the everyday. They thought of physical and spiritual phenomena as part of dynamic processes rather than as discrete entities.

Transcendentalism is one of the first philosophical currents that emerged in the United States;<ref name=Coviello>Coviello, Peter. "Transcendentalism" ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature''. Oxford University Press, 2004. ''Oxford Reference Online''. Web. 23 Oct. 2011</ref> it is therefore a key early point in the history of [[American philosophy]]. Emphasizing subjective [[intuition]] over objective [[empiricism]], its adherents believe that individuals are capable of generating completely original insights with little attention and deference to past transcendentalists. Its rise was a protest against the general state of [[intellectualism]] and [[spirituality]] at the time.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|last=Finseth|first=Ian|title=American Transcendentalism|url=http://thoreau.eserver.org/amertran.html|publisher=Excerpted from "Liquid Fire Within Me": Language, Self and Society in Transcendentalism and Early Evangelicalism, 1820–1860, – M.A. Thesis, 1995.|access-date=18 April 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130416154939/http://thoreau.eserver.org/amertran.html|archive-date=16 April 2013}}</ref> The doctrine of the [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] church as taught at [[Harvard Divinity School]] was closely related.

Transcendentalism was thought to originally have emerged from "English and German [[Romanticism]], the [[Biblical criticism]] of [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] and [[Friedrich Schleiermacher]], the skepticism of [[David Hume]]",<ref name="Stanford"/> and the [[Transcendental idealism|transcendental philosophy]] of [[Immanuel Kant]] and [[German idealism]]. [[Perry Miller]] and [[Arthur Versluis]] regard [[Emanuel Swedenborg]] and [[Jakob Böhme]] as pervasive influences on transcendentalism.{{sfn|Miller|1950|p=49}}{{sfn|Versluis|2001|p=17}}

==Origin==
Transcendentalism is closely related to [[Unitarianism]], a religious movement in Boston in the early nineteenth century. It started to develop after Unitarianism took hold at [[Harvard University]], following the elections of [[Henry Ware (Unitarian)|Henry Ware]] as the Hollis Professor of Divinity in 1805 and of [[John Thornton Kirkland]] as President in 1810. Transcendentalism was not a rejection of Unitarianism; rather, it developed as an organic consequence of the Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason. The transcendentalists were not content with the [[sobriety]], mildness, and calm [[rationalism]] of Unitarianism. Instead, they wanted a more intense spiritual experience. Thus, transcendentalism was not born as a counter-movement to Unitarianism, but as a parallel movement to the very ideas introduced by the Unitarians.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Finseth|first1=Ian Frederick|title=The Emergence of Transcendentalism|url=http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma95/finseth/trans.html|website=American Studies @ The University of Virginia|publisher=[[The University of Virginia]]|access-date=9 November 2014|archive-date=18 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230718205554/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA95/finseth/trans.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Transcendental Club==
{{One source section
| date = November 2023
}}[[File:Ralph Waldo Emerson ca1857.jpg|thumb|[[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], the son of [[Rev. William Emerson]], a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] minister.]]
Transcendentalism became a coherent movement and a sacred organization with the founding of the [[Transcendental Club]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], on September 12, 1836, by prominent New England intellectuals, including [[George Putnam]],<ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/Heralds/George-Putnam.php |title=Heralds |contribution=George Putnam |publisher=Harvard Square Library |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130305153702/http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/Heralds/George-Putnam.php |archive-date=March 5, 2013 }}</ref> [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], and [[Frederic Henry Hedge]]. Other members of the club included [[Sophia Ripley]], [[Margaret Fuller]], [[Elizabeth Peabody]], [[Ellen Sturgis Hooper]], [[Caroline Sturgis Tappan]], [[Amos Bronson Alcott]], [[Orestes Brownson]], [[Theodore Parker]], [[Henry David Thoreau]], [[William Henry Channing]], [[James Freeman Clarke]], [[Christopher Pearse Cranch]], [[Convers Francis]], [[Sylvester Judd]], [[Jones Very]], and [[Charles Stearns Wheeler]]. From 1840, the group frequently published in their journal ''[[The Dial]]'', along with other venues.

[[Sophia Hawthorne|Sophia Peabody Hawthorne]]’s ''Cuba Journal'' is considered one of the earliest examples of transcendentalist writing shared among the Transcendental Club. The ''Cuba Journal''  predates Emerson’s ''[[Nature (essay)|Nature]]'' by two years and Thoreau’s ''[[Walden]]'' by more than a decade.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2025-01-31 |title=Sophia Peabody’s Cuba Journal Captivated the Alcotts and the Emersons |url=https://www.neh.gov/article/sophia-peabodys-cuba-journal-captivated-alcotts-and-emersons |access-date=2025-07-29 |website=National Endowment for the Humanities |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Citation |last=Fuller |first=Randall |title=Sophia Peabody in Cuba |date=2024-10-24 |work=Bright Circle: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism |pages=0 |editor-last=Fuller |editor-first=Randall |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192843630.003.0004 |access-date=2025-07-29 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-284363-0}}</ref> Comprising 56 letters written during her stay in Cuba in the early 1830s, the journal is a richly descriptive account of the island’s landscape, flora, and atmosphere, focused on sensory experience and personal awakening.<ref name=":2" /> Though it avoided political or economic commentary, its celebration of nature’s beauty and spiritual resonance deeply influenced early Transcendentalist thinkers. [[Elizabeth Peabody]], Sophia Peabody's sister, shared the letters widely, hosting reading parties—some lasting up to seven hours—where guests including Bronson and Abba Alcott, the Emersons, and the Channings took turns reading them aloud late into the night.<ref name=":2" /> Echoing themes that Emerson would later articulate, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne wrote: “[I]t is pure, single Nature, alone in her power & loveliness, that touches subdues and exalts the soul—We do not remember the godlike here—but we think of GOD here.”<ref name=":3" />

==Second wave of transcendentalists==

By the late 1840s, Emerson believed that the movement was dying out, and even more so after the death of [[Margaret Fuller]] in 1850. "All that can be said", Emerson wrote, "is that she represents an interesting hour and group in American cultivation."<ref>{{Citation | last = Rose | first = Anne C | title = Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830–1850 | place = New Haven, CT | publisher = Yale University Press | year = 1981 | page = [https://archive.org/details/transcendentalis0000rose/page/208 208] | isbn = 0-300-02587-4 | url = https://archive.org/details/transcendentalis0000rose/page/208 }}.</ref> There was, however, a second wave of transcendentalists later in the 19th century, including [[Moncure Conway]], [[Octavius Brooks Frothingham]], [[Samuel Longfellow]] and [[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn]].<ref>{{Citation | last = Gura | first = Philip F | title = American Transcendentalism: A History | place = New York | publisher = Hill and Wang | year = 2007 | page = [https://archive.org/details/americantranscen00gura/page/8 8] | isbn = 978-0-8090-3477-2 | url = https://archive.org/details/americantranscen00gura/page/8 }}.</ref> The transcendence of the spirit, most often evoked by the poet's prosaic voice, is said to endow in the reader a sense of purpose. This is the underlying theme in the majority of transcendentalist essays and papers—all of which are centered on subjects which assert a love for individual expression.<ref>Stevenson, Martin K. "Empirical Analysis of the American Transcendental movement". New York: Penguin, 2012:303.</ref> The group was mostly made up of struggling [[aestheticism|aesthetes]], the wealthiest among them being [[Samuel Gray Ward]], who, after a few contributions to ''The Dial'', focused on his banking career.<ref>Wayne, Tiffany. ''Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism: The Essential Guide to the Lives and Works of Transcendentalist Writers''. New York: Facts on File, 2006: 308. {{ISBN|0-8160-5626-9}}</ref>

==Beliefs==
Transcendentalists are strong believers in the power of the individual and are primarily concerned with [[personal freedom]]. Their beliefs are closely linked with those of the [[Romantics]], but differ by an attempt to embrace or, at least, to not oppose the empiricism of science.
===Transcendental knowledge===
Transcendentalists desire to ground their religion and philosophy in principles based upon the German [[Romanticism]] of [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] and [[Friedrich Schleiermacher]]. Transcendentalism merged "[[English Romanticism|English]] and [[German Romanticism]], the [[Biblical criticism]] of Herder and Schleiermacher, the skepticism of [[David Hume|Hume]]",<ref name="Stanford"/> and the transcendental philosophy of [[Immanuel Kant]] (and of [[German idealism]] more generally), interpreting Kant's ''a priori'' categories as [[A priori knowledge|''a priori'' knowledge]]. Early transcendentalists were largely unacquainted with [[German philosophy]] in the original and relied primarily on the writings of [[Thomas Carlyle]], [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], [[Victor Cousin]], [[Germaine de Staël]], and other English and French commentators for their knowledge of it. The transcendental movement can be described as an American outgrowth of English Romanticism.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

===Individualism===
Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly [[organized religion]] and political parties—corrupt the purity of the individual.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/understandingeme0000sack|url-access=registration|quote=institutions.|title=Understanding Emerson: 'The American Scholar' and His Struggle for Self-reliance|last1=Sacks|first1=Kenneth S.|last2=Sacks|first2=Professor Kenneth S.|date=2003|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691099828|language=en}}</ref> They have faith that people are at their best when truly self-reliant and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community can form.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}

Even with this necessary individuality, transcendentalists also believe that all people are outlets for the "[[The Over-Soul|Over-Soul]]". Because the Over-Soul is one, this unites all people as one being.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Emerson|first1=Ralph Waldo|title=The Over-Soul|url=http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/emerson/essays/oversoul.html|website=American Transcendentalism Web|access-date=13 July 2015|archive-date=16 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190416112312/http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/emerson/essays/oversoul.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{Request quotation|date=July 2015}} Emerson alludes to this concept in the introduction of the ''[[The American Scholar|American Scholar]]'' address, "that there is One Man, – present to all particular men only partially, or through one faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/emerson/essays/amscholar.html|title=Emerson – 'The American Scholar'|website=transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu|access-date=2017-10-14|archive-date=2017-12-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171213134859/http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu.edu/authors/emerson/essays/amscholar.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> Such an ideal is in harmony with Transcendentalist individualism, as each person is empowered to behold within him or herself a piece of the divine Over-Soul.{{Citation needed|date=November 2023}}

In recent years, there has been a distinction made between individuality and [[individualism]]. Both advocate the unique capacity of the individual. Yet individualism is decidedly anti-government, whereas individuality sees all facets of society necessary, or at least acceptable for the development of the true individualistic person. Whether the Transcendentalists believed in individualism or individuality remains to be determined.

===Indian religions===
While firmly rooted in the western philosophical traditions of [[Platonism]], [[Neoplatonism]], and [[German idealism]], Transcendentalism was also directly influenced by [[Indian religions]].{{sfn|Versluis|1993}}{{sfn|Versluis|2001|p=3}}{{refn|group=note|Versluis: "In ''American Transcendentalism and Asian religions'', I detailed the immense impact that the Euro-American discovery of Asian religions had not only on European Romanticism, but above all, on American Transcendentalism. There I argued that the Transcendentalists' discovery of the [[Bhagavad-Gita]], the [[Vedas]], the [[Upanishads]], and other world scriptures was critical in the entire movement, pivotal not only for the well-known figures like Emerson and Thoreau, but also for lesser known figures like Samuel Johnson and William Rounsville Alger. That Transcendentalism emerged out of this new knowledge of the world's religious traditions I have no doubt."{{sfn|Versluis|2001|p=3}}}}  Thoreau in ''[[Walden]]'' spoke of the Transcendentalists' debt to Indian religions directly:
[[File:Henry David Thoreau 2.jpg|thumb|left|[[Henry David Thoreau]]]]
{{quote|In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the [[Bhagavad Gita|Bhagavat Geeta]], since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the [[Brahmin]], priest of [[Brahma]], and [[Vishnu]] and [[Indra]], who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the [[Vedas]], or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water-jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the [[Sacred waters|sacred water]] of the Ganges.<ref>Thoreau, Henry David. ''[[Walden]]''. Boston: Ticknor&Fields, 1854. p. 279. Print.</ref>|sign=|source=}}
In 1844, the first English translation of the [[Lotus Sutra]] was included in ''[[The Dial]]'', a publication of the New England Transcendentalists, translated from French by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Lopez|first1=Donald S. Jr.|title=The Life of the Lotus Sutra|journal=Tricycle Magazine|date=2016|issue=Winter|url=https://tricycle.org/magazine/lotus-sutra-history/|access-date=2017-11-09|archive-date=2022-01-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220128095709/https://tricycle.org/magazine/lotus-sutra-history/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Emerson|first1=Ralph Waldo|last2=Fuller|first2=Margaret|last3=Ripley|first3=George|title=The Preaching of Buddha|journal=The Dial|date=1844|volume=4|page=391|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VnsAAAAAYAAJ|access-date=2017-11-09|archive-date=2024-02-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240208234705/https://books.google.com/books?id=VnsAAAAAYAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Idealism===
Transcendentalists differ in their interpretations of the practical aims of will. Some adherents link it with utopian social change; [[Orestes Brownson|Brownson]], for example, connected it with early [[socialism]], but others consider it an exclusively individualist and idealist project. Emerson believed the latter. In his 1842 lecture "[[The Transcendentalist]]", he suggested that the goal of a purely transcendental outlook on life was impossible to attain in practice: 
{{quote|You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a transcendental ''party''; that there is no pure transcendentalist; that we know of no one but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands.  ... Shall we say, then, that transcendentalism is the [[Saturnalia]] or excess of Faith; the presentiment of a faith proper to man in his integrity, excessive only when his imperfect obedience hinders the satisfaction of his wish.}}

=== Importance of nature ===
Transcendentalists have a deep gratitude and appreciation for nature, not only for aesthetic purposes, but also as a tool to observe and understand the structured inner workings of the natural world.<ref name=":0" /> Emerson emphasizes the Transcendental beliefs in the holistic power of the natural landscape in ''[[Nature (essay)|Nature]]:''<blockquote>In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, – no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, – my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Emerson |first1=Ralph Waldo |title=Nature |url=https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/naturetext.html#1 |website=American Transcendentalism Web |access-date=2019-04-15 |archive-date=2019-09-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190903162823/https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/naturetext.html#1 |url-status=live }}</ref>
</blockquote>Influenced by Emerson and the importance of nature, [[Charles Stearns Wheeler]] built a shanty at [[Flints Pond|Flint's Pond]] in 1836. Considered the first Transcendentalist outdoor living experiment, Wheeler used his shanty during his summer vacations from Harvard from 1836 to 1842. Thoreau stayed at Wheeler's shanty for six weeks during the summer of 1837, and got the idea that he wanted to build his own cabin (later realized at Walden in 1845).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Eidson |first=John Olin |title=Charles Stearns Wheeler – Friend of Emerson |year=1951}}</ref> The exact location of the Wheeler shanty site was discovered by Jeff Craig in 2018, after a five-year search effort.<ref name="Landrigan">{{Cite web |last=Landrigan |first=Leslie |date=2021-10-22 |title=Charles Stearns Wheeler, the Transcendentalist Pioneer Who Inspired Walden |url=https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/charles-stearns-wheeler/ |access-date=2023-09-09 |website=New England Historical Society |language=en-US |archive-date=2023-05-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230508172946/https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/charles-stearns-wheeler/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
The conservation of an undisturbed natural world is also extremely important to the Transcendentalists. The idealism that is a core belief of Transcendentalism results in an inherent skepticism of [[capitalism]], [[Manifest destiny|westward expansion]], and [[Technological and industrial history of the United States|industrialization]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Nature's nation|last=Miller |first=Perry |date=1967|publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|isbn=0674605500|location=Cambridge, MA|oclc=6571892}}</ref> As early as 1843, in ''[[Summer on the Lakes]],'' Margaret Fuller noted that "the noble trees are gone already from this island to feed this caldron",<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11526/11526-h/11526-h.htm|title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of Summer on the Lakes, by S. M. Fuller|website=www.gutenberg.org|access-date=2019-04-15|archive-date=2019-10-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191004034339/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11526/11526-h/11526-h.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> and in 1854, in ''Walden,'' Thoreau regarded the [[History of rail transportation in the United States|trains being built across America's landscape]] as a "winged horse or fiery dragon" that "sprinkle[d] all the restless men and floating merchandise in the country for seed".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm#chap18|title=Walden, by Henry David Thoreau|website=www.gutenberg.org|access-date=2019-04-15|archive-date=2019-04-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190411155614/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm#chap18|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Influence on other movements==
{{NewThought}}
{{Further|History of New Thought}}

Transcendentalism is, in many aspects, the first notable American intellectual movement. It has inspired succeeding generations of American intellectuals, as well as some literary movements.<ref name=Coviello></ref>

Transcendentalism influenced the growing movement of "Mental Sciences" of the mid-19th century, which would later become known as the [[New Thought]] movement. New Thought considers Emerson its intellectual father.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571544/New_Thought.html | contribution = New Thought | title = MSN Encarta | access-date = Nov 16, 2007 | publisher = Microsoft | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091102072530/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571544/New_Thought.html | archive-date = 2009-11-02 }}.</ref> [[Emma Curtis Hopkins]] ("the teacher of teachers"), [[Ernest Holmes]] (founder of [[Religious Science]]), [[Charles Fillmore (Unity Church)|Charles]] and [[Myrtle Fillmore]] (founders of [[Unity Church|Unity]]), and [[Malinda Cramer]] and [[Nona L. Brooks]] (founders of [[Divine Science]]) were all greatly influenced by Transcendentalism.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.websyte.com/alan/intachrt.htm | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20000824113817/http://websyte.com/alan/intachrt.htm | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2000-08-24 | title = INTA New Thought History Chart | publisher = Websyte }}.</ref>

Transcendentalism is also influenced by [[Hinduism]]. [[Ram Mohan Roy]] (1772–1833), the founder of the [[Brahmo Samaj]], rejected Hindu mythology, but also the Christian trinity.{{sfn|Harris|2009|p=268}} He found that [[Unitarianism]] came closest to true Christianity,{{sfn|Harris|2009|p=268}} and had a strong sympathy for the Unitarians,{{sfn|Kipf|1979|p=3}} who were closely connected to the Transcendentalists.{{sfn|Versluis|1993}} Ram Mohan Roy founded a missionary committee in Calcutta, and in 1828 asked for support for missionary activities from the American Unitarians.{{sfn|Kipf|1979|pp=7–8}} By 1829, Roy had abandoned the Unitarian Committee,{{sfn|Kipf|1979|p=15}} but after Roy's death, the Brahmo Samaj kept close ties to the Unitarian Church,{{sfn|Harris|2009|pp=268–269}} who strove towards a rational faith, social reform, and the joining of these two in a renewed religion.{{Sfn|Kipf|1979|p=4}} Its theology was called "[[neo-Vedanta]]" by Christian commentators,{{sfn|Halbfass|1995|p=9}}{{sfn|Rinehart|2004|p=192}} and has been highly influential in the modern popular understanding of Hinduism,{{sfn|King|2002}} but also of modern western spirituality, which re-imported the Unitarian influences in the disguise of the seemingly age-old [[Neo-Vedanta]].{{sfn|King|2002}}{{sfn|Sharf|1995}}{{sfn|Sharf|2000}}

==Major figures==
[[File:Sarah Margaret Fuller engraving.jpg|thumb|[[Margaret Fuller]]]]
Major figures in the transcendentalist movement were [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]], [[Henry David Thoreau]], [[Margaret Fuller]], and [[Amos Bronson Alcott]]. Some other prominent transcendentalists included [[Louisa May Alcott]], [[Charles Timothy Brooks]], [[Orestes Brownson]], [[William Ellery Channing (poet)|William Ellery Channing]], [[William Henry Channing]], [[James Freeman Clarke]], [[Christopher Pearse Cranch]], [[John Sullivan Dwight]], [[Convers Francis]], [[William Henry Furness]], [[Frederic Henry Hedge]], [[Sylvester Judd]], [[Theodore Parker]], [[Elizabeth Palmer Peabody]], [[George Ripley (transcendentalist)|George Ripley]], [[Thomas Treadwell Stone]], [[Jones Very]], and [[Walt Whitman]].<ref>Gura, Philip F. ''American Transcendentalism: A History''. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007: 7–8. {{ISBN|0-8090-3477-8}}</ref>

== Criticism ==
Early in the movement's history, the term "transcendentalists" was used as a [[wikt:pejorative|pejorative]] term by critics, who were suggesting their position was beyond sanity and reason.<ref>{{Citation | last = Loving | first = Jerome | title = Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself | publisher = University of California Press | year = 1999 | isbn = 0-520-22687-9 | page = 185}}.</ref> [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] wrote a novel, ''[[The Blithedale Romance]]'' (1852), satirizing the movement, and based it on his experiences at [[Brook Farm]], a short-lived utopian community founded on transcendental principles.<ref>{{Citation | last = McFarland | first = Philip | title = Hawthorne in Concord | place = New York | publisher = Grove Press | year = 2004 | page = [https://archive.org/details/hawthorneinconco00mcfa/page/149 149] | isbn = 0-8021-1776-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/hawthorneinconco00mcfa/page/149 }}.</ref>

In [[Edgar Allan Poe|Edgar Allan Poe's]] satires "How to Write a Blackwood Article" (1838) and "[[Never Bet the Devil Your Head]]" (1841), the author ridicules transcendentalism,<ref name=":1" /> elsewhere calling its followers "Frogpondians" after the pond on [[Boston Common]].<ref>{{Citation | last = Royot | first = Daniel | contribution = Poe's humor | title = The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe | editor-first = Kevin J | editor-last = Hayes | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2002 | pages = 61–62 | isbn = 0-521-79727-6}}.</ref> The latter story specifically mentions the movement and its flagship journal ''[[The Dial]]'', though Poe denied that he had any specific targets.<ref>{{Citation |last=Sova |first=Dawn B |title=Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z |page=[https://archive.org/details/edgarallanpoetoz0000sova/page/170 170] |year=2001 |url=https://archive.org/details/edgarallanpoetoz0000sova/page/170 |place=New York |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-4161-X}}.</ref> Poe attacked the transcendentalists' writings by calling them "metaphor-run mad", lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "[[mysticism]] for mysticism's sake".<ref name=":1">{{Citation | last = Ljunquist | first = Kent | contribution = The poet as critic | title = The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe | editor-first = Kevin J | editor-last = Hayes | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2002 | page = 15 | isbn = 0-521-79727-6}}</ref> In Poe's essay "[[The Philosophy of Composition]]" (1846), he offers criticism denouncing "the excess of the suggested meaning... which turns into prose (and that of the very flattest kind) the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists".<ref>{{Citation | title = The Norton Anthology of American Literature | volume = B | edition = 6th | editor1-first = Nina | editor1-last = Baym | place = New York | publisher = Norton | year = 2007|display-editors=etal}}.</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Religion|Christianity|United States|Philosophy}}
* [[Dark romanticism]]
* [[Freemasonry]]
* [[Fruitlands (transcendental center)|Fruitlands]]
* [[Immanentism]]
* ''[[The Machine in the Garden]]''
* [[Natural Supernaturalism]]
* [[Self-transcendence]]
* [[Transcendence (religion)]]

== References ==
=== Notes ===
{{Reflist|group=note}}

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{Citation | last=Halbfass | first=Wilhelm | year=1995 | title=Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedānta | publisher=SUNY Press}}
* {{Citation | last=Harris | first=Mark W. | year=2009 | title=The A to Z of Unitarian Universalism | publisher=Scarecrow Press}}
* {{Citation | last=King | first=Richard | author-link=Richard E. King| year=2002 | title=Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and "The Mystic East" | publisher=Routledge}}
* {{Citation | last=Kipf | first=David | year=1979 | title=The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind |url=https://archive.org/details/brahmosamajshapi0000unse |url-access=registration | publisher=Princeton University Press}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Miller |editor-first=Perry |year=1950 |title=The Transcendentalists: An Anthology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vhPUUOh5NgYC |publisher=Harvard University Press |access-date=2016-01-10 |archive-date=2024-02-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240208234821/https://books.google.com/books?id=vhPUUOh5NgYC |url-status=live }} {{ISBN|9780674903333}}: Reprint. [https://archive.org/details/transcendentalis0000perr 1967 reprint at the Internet Archive] {{registration}}.
* {{Citation | last=Rinehart | first=Robin | year=2004 | title=Contemporary Hinduism: ritual, culture, and practice | publisher=ABC-CLIO}}
* {{Citation | last=Sharf | first=Robert H. | year=1995 | title=Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | journal=[[Numen (journal)|Numen]] | volume=42 | issue=3 | pages=228–283 | url=http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sharf/documents/Sharf1995,%20Buddhist%20Modernism.pdf | access-date=2013-11-01 | doi=10.1163/1568527952598549 | hdl=2027.42/43810 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412103407/http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sharf/documents/Sharf1995,%20Buddhist%20Modernism.pdf | archive-date=2019-04-12 | url-status=dead | hdl-access=free }}
* {{Citation | last=Sharf | first=Robert H. | year=2000 | title=The Rhetoric of Experience and the Study of Religion | journal=[[Journal of Consciousness Studies]] | volume=7 | issue=11–12 | pages=267–287 | url=http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sharf/documents/Sharf1998,%20Religious%20Experience.pdf | access-date=2013-11-01 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513104227/http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/sharf/documents/Sharf1998,%20Religious%20Experience.pdf | archive-date=2013-05-13 | url-status=dead }}
* {{Citation | last=Versluis | first=Arthur | author-link=Arthur Versluis| year=1993 | title=American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions | publisher=Oxford University Press}}
* {{Citation | last=Versluis | first=Arthur | year=2001 | title=The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance | publisher=Oxford University Press}}
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
* Dillard, Daniel, "The American Transcendentalists: A Religious Historiography", ''49th Parallel'' (Birmingham, England), 28 (Spring 2012), [http://www.49thparallel.bham.ac.uk online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140709074042/http://www.49thparallel.bham.ac.uk/ |date=2014-07-09 }}
* Gura, Philip F. ''American Transcendentalism: A History'' (2007) {{ISBN?}}
* Harrison, C. G.  ''The Transcendental Universe, six lectures delivered before the Berean Society'' (London, 1894) 1993 edition {{ISBN|0940262584}} (US), ISBN 0904693449 (UK)
* Rose, Anne C. ''Social Movement, 1830–1850'' (Yale University Press, 1981) {{ISBN?}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Americana Poster|Transcendental Philosophy|Transcendentalism}}

'''Topic sites'''
* {{Citation | url = https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/index.html | title = The web of American Transcendentalism | publisher = VCU}}
* {{Citation | url = http://womenshistory.about.com/bltranscend.htm | contribution = What Is Transcendentalism? | title = Women's History | publisher = About | access-date = 2006-06-01 | archive-date = 2009-09-07 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090907164042/http://womenshistory.about.com/bltranscend.htm | url-status = dead }}
* {{Citation | url = https://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/transcend.html | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/19970607204758/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ihas/icon/transcend.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = June 7, 1997 | title = The American Renaissance and Transcendentalism}}

'''Encyclopedias'''
* {{cite IEP |url-id=am-trans |title=American Transcendentalism}}
* {{Citation | url = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentalism/ | publisher = Stanford | title = Encyclopedia of Philosophy | year = 2019 | contribution = Transcendentalism}}

'''Other'''
* Ian Frederick Finseth (1995), [https://web.archive.org/web/19971023000604/http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA95/finseth/thesis.html ''Liquid Fire Within Me: Language, Self and Society in Transcendentalism and early Evangelicalism, 1820–1860''], M.A. Thesis in English, University of Virginia]

{{Philosophy of religion}}
{{Philosophy topics}}
{{Authority control}}

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