English 11 / Unit 2: Romanticism and Transcendentalism
2.4 Ralph Waldo Emerson and Transcendentalism
Notes
Transcendentalism was a New England movement that held that people can know truth through intuition and nature, and that every individual contains divinity.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) laid out the ideas in "Nature" (1836) and "Self-Reliance" (1841).
- Key beliefs: trust your intuition, think for yourself, nature reveals spiritual truth, and society can pressure people into conformity.
- Famous lines: "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string," and "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
- Emerson's style is made of bold, quotable statements and metaphors.
- Worked example: a student who keeps a belief only to avoid looking inconsistent is showing the "foolish consistency" Emerson criticizes.
Practice
A central message of "Self-Reliance" is:
Emerson urges individuals to trust their own thought.
Transcendentalists believed that truth can be found mainly through:
They valued insight and nature over tradition and authority.
Which situation best illustrates Emerson's warning about conformity?
She abandons her own judgment to match others' opinions.
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