ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Transcendentalism, which lasted from about 1830 to 1860, was a vital part of the Romantic movement. Ralph Waldo Emerson was its putative leader. 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.

Detailed explanation-2: -Transcendentalism is a 19th-century school of American theological and philosophical thought that combined respect for nature and self-sufficiency with elements of Unitarianism and German Romanticism.

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: -Ralph Waldo Emerson (left) was the central and most influential figure among the group of radical thinkers and writers of the 1830s-1850s known as the New England Transcendentalists.