ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -As a group, the transcendentalists led the celebration of the American experiment as one of individualism and self-reliance. They took progressive stands on women’s rights, abolition, reform, and education. They criticized government, organized religion, laws, social institutions, and creeping industrialization.

Detailed explanation-2: -Transcendentalism has its origins in New England of the early 1800s and the birth of Unitarianism. It was born from a debate between “New Light” theologians, who believed that religion should focus on an emotional experience, and “Old Light” opponents, who valued reason in their religious approach.

Detailed explanation-3: -The anti-transcendentalists believed in a higher authority and that nature is ultimately the creation and possession of God – and can not be understood by humans. Anti-transcendentalists feared that people who desired complete individualism would give into the worse angles of man’s nature.

Detailed explanation-4: -Transcendentalism flourished at the height of literary and aesthetic Romanticism in Europe and America. Romanticism was marked by a reaction against classical formalism and convention and by an emphasis on emotion, spirituality, subjectivity, and inspiration.