ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The transcendentalism movement arose as a result of a reaction to Unitarianism as well as the Age of Reason. Both centered on reason as the main source of knowledge, but transcendentalists rejected that notion.

Detailed explanation-2: -Transcendentalist author, Henry David Thoreau sees materialism as the destruction of society and one’s mind. He articulates this in Walden, “Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them.

Detailed explanation-3: -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-4: -Transcendentalists were idealistic and optimistic because they believed they could find answers to whatever they were seeking. All they had to do was learn to read, through their intuition, the external symbols of nature and translate them into spiritual facts.