Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism Overview
What is transcendentalism? Transcendentalism started out as a social movement. It was a new way of thinking, which challenged everything you once thought. You could not be a transcendentalist and believe the same things that society did. The transcendentalist proposed that the world wasn't really how we see it, that reality is a figment of our imagination.  Within the literature of Emerson and Thoreau, they portray these ideals of transcendentalism. They see where they must go mentally and physically to reach the level they want. That level is beyond what everyone else may think. To get to that level the individual must seek spiritual greatness, and understanding. " The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches." ( Emerson, 180) In this quote from Emerson's Nature, he states that the beauty from the stars cannot be contained, it is beyond him but that does not mean he cannot appreciate the beauty. This can relate back to transcendentalism because many have to contain something for it to be meaningful, but the heavens above will still be just as meaningful without that containment.
Thoreau followed these ideas of transcendentalism he was more of a student and practitioner of Emerson's. He had strong belief that the government kept us blind to our own conscience, and as people we signed ourselves over too easily. " Why has every man a conscience then? (Thoreau,213) . He says this because if everyone signs themselves over to the government and will not listen to anything but what they tell them to do, why should they have their own thinking?
Both Emerson and Thoreau believed in thinking for yourself, and they asked questions that provoked something deep inside you, to find your own meaning without hearing it from others. " I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.." (Thoreau, 204) In this quote from Thoreau's Walden, he went off on his own to learn more about his own conscience. " Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members" ( Emerson, 184) This quote can relate to the one from Thoreau because they both recognize that the world around them is pushing different thoughts onto them, which eventually shapes us into someone we are not.