ACCTG 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: American Literature, Hester Prynne, Margaret Fuller
Document Summary
Transcendentalism (19th century) was the first, and maybe the most important, indigenous. Transcendentalism isn"t just literature but also includes religious, philosophical, and sociopolitical areas. Transcendentalism is causally connected to the writer and philosopher ralph wald emerson. After the dead of his wife emerson, a harvard graduate and priest, had many religious doubts and this led him to abandon the priesthood. During a stay in europe he got to now the poets samuel taylor coleridge and william wordsworth, who were both founders of the. Back in the united states, emerson became a popular lecturer whose performances still had religious contents but tended to larger philosophical questions. From the mid-1830s on, he belonged to a circle of intellectuals known as the transcendentalists, including, nathaniel hawthorne, henry david thoreau, margaret fuller and amos bronson. Emerson"s first book, the essay-like nature , already contained all of the important principles of the transcendentalist movement.
