Emerson/Transcendentalism

This week we have been introduced to transcendentalism which is an extreme side to Romanticism and was an intellectual movement that took place during the romantic period. Transcendentalist basically believed that all people are good and that individuals could all experience God first hand, which is the complete opposite of what the puritans believed. Transcendentalism based their beliefs of the individual and highly believe on intuition, "the highest power of the soul." They were very close to nature and believed it reflected the ideal world. Nature was a way for the soul to teach itself and not conform to society's ways. It taught to follow personal beliefs other than society's beliefs. Emerson, a transcendentalist, believed that the "soul's emphasis is always right." He focused on his own thought the seeked for religion outside of the church instead. He gave many speeches which helped into the leading of the abolishment of slavery. Nowadays we don't see many of these thought around since out society is strictly influenced by the government.