ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -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.

Detailed explanation-2: -Transcendentalists advocated the idea of a personal knowledge of God, believing that no intermediary was needed for spiritual insight. They embraced idealism, focusing on nature and opposing materialism.

Detailed explanation-3: -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-4: -Transcendentalists valued individualism and self-reliance Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller were among the principals of the movement. The Transcendentalists believed there is a divine spirit in nature and in every living soul. Through individualism and self-reliance human beings could reunite with God.

Detailed explanation-5: -The ideas and writings of the transcendentalists, however, continued to inspire later reform movements, including the movement for women’s suffrage, and the labor movement.