Two Examples Of Transcendentalism In American Culture

The romantic era of America was an important time in America’s culture. Transcendentalism was introduced into our culture. In which people learned from nature and would have inspire Americans in the future. Poe along with other poets took a look at mankind and brought in new ideas about mankind as a whole. Death was also a theme explored. The romantic era changed: man and nature, thoughts about mankind, and death. It was here that transcendentalism showed up in which one learns from nature. In fact one of the big writers named Henry David Thoreau lived in a cabin for a year. He did this to show you can do what transcendentalism teaches. One of his books inspired two very famous people. Martin Luther King and Gandhi were those to people. The idea of civil dissidence came from him. World history would not be the same without this movement. India would either be a part of England or would have left through war, rather than the peaceful way in which it did. Pakistan might not be a country. …show more content…
Now man was looked at as rather virtuous until the romantic period. Man was made to look over God’s creatures. They were there the masters of creation. All of which is in the bible and being most Americans were Christians they believed this to be true. Edgar Allen Poe would disagree. (To be clear not the bible stuff just the virtuous part). In his short story the pit and the pendulum we have the narrator in a death trap for a crime that is not mentioned. The device is complicated. He is tried down and a pendulum swings back and forworth and will kill him. He gets out of that but the walls are moving to crush him. He can jump and die or be crushed by the walls. It in a sense is torture before death. Cruel and usual was his punishment. It could have been knock him out with a toxin and then cut off his head while he is out. Man is not inherently nice or respective of life. Nathaniel