ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Humans are inherently good. Society and its institutions such as organized religion and politics are corrupting. Instead of being part of them, humans should strive to be independent and self-reliant. Spirituality should come from the self, not organized religion.

Detailed explanation-2: -Transcendentalism attracted such diverse and highly individualistic figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Orestes Brownson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, and James Freeman Clarke, as well as George Ripley, Bronson Alcott, the younger W.E. Channing, and W.H. Channing.

Detailed explanation-3: -Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions-particularly organized religion and political parties-corrupt the purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly self-reliant and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community can form.

Detailed explanation-4: -Transcendentalists believed in numerous values, however they can all be condensed into three basic, essential values: individualism, idealism, and the divinity of nature.

Detailed explanation-5: -In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his 1842 lecture “The Transcendentalist": The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy.