Romanticism and Transcendentalism Essay

As most people know, there are many different types of stories and books. There is fiction and nonfiction, thrillers and science fictions. What many people do not know is there are other categories in literature. Two of them are Romanticism and Transcendentalism. There are many similarities and differences between Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Dark Romanticism is a subcategory of Romanticism. It is quite similar to its parent type but has a darker perspective. Romanticism and Transcendentalism are as similar as they are different. There are many similarities between Romanticism and Transcendentalism. One of the similarities between the groups is the incorporation of nature. Writings by authors of both types seem to tie nature into many of their works. For example, in Walt Whitman’s piece “A child said What is the grass?” he…

Romanticism is defined as “a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. “ (Merriam-Webster 2015). Romanticism is the roots of Dark Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Dark Romanticism is a style that consist of dark emotions. While, transcendentalism is a style that varies between religion and spirituality. Edgar Allen Poe is a Dark Romantics and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau…

Dark Romanticism Romanticism took over American literature for a brief time, but changed the country in a significant way. Romantic literature gave Americans insight, imagination, and individualism. Within the works of this genre interest in the common man, strong emotions, love of nature, imagination, and celebration of the individual can be found. Romanticism can be sorted into two groups: dark romantic and transcendentalism. Transcendentalism influenced many dark romantics, but when…

Transcendentalism: an idealistic philosophical and social movement, first developed in New England in the mid-1830s. This movement proposes that every individual can possess the ability to discover a higher truth on their own. Transcendentalists believe that human experience and high knowledge thinking is more effective than any human reasoning. These people strongly disagree that there is a reason behind our environment and behaviors. Unlike Puritans and their belief that salvation and goodness…

It represented a thoughtful revolt against orthodox Puritanism. Unitarianism believed God as one being, rejecting the doctrine of trinity, stressing the divinity in human nature. It laid the foundation for the central doctrines of transcendentalism.…

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a spirit of nationalism developed in the states, which soon led to the creation of an American identity. Literature became a part of this identity, and was written in two different styles: Dark Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Famous authors of Dark Romanticism include Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, while famous Transcendentalist authors include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The Transcendentalists believe that nature was innocent…

Rather than being different, transcendentalism and romanticism could be said to be relative to each other. As they both grew as a reaction to the rapid evolution of the world (industrial revolution, French revolution), they could be said to revolve around reclaiming of the individual and the basics of the world. This shows in both of these literary ideas strongly encouraging the concept of nature and natural thought processes of man. Going back to the basic notions of all men being equal and the…

Nature writing was a growing trend of the educated in America in the 1800s. From Emerson to Whitman to Thoreau, each writer looked toward nature for both inspiration and meaning and tried to determine how nature was connected to mankind as a whole. Furthermore, due to each distinct mindsets of this era- sublime, romanticism, and transcendentalism-, each writer observed nature for different reasons and found and had different explanations for and experiences with the natural world. As stated…

Ryan O’Neill Kuglen-2 Honors English 11 25 November 2014 Romantics and Transcendentalists The new ideas from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries changed the way that people viewed nature and how people chose to express themselves. American Romanticism and/or Transcendentalism are often shown in many of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and poems and in Herman Melville’s Typee. American Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth…

Manifest Destiny Through the eyes of Margaret Fuller and Henry David Thoreau Romanticism was a social reform movement that changed American society. The industrialization that occurred in the 1820s and 30s sparked this reformation of American individuality. During this period of evolution, certain individuals expanded both philosophically and geographically. With the world changing at such a fast pace, people were forced to adapt and embrace the unknown. This mentality was greatly adopted by…