1. Growth and Development

Ralph Waldo Emerson published Nature in 1836 which represented a new way of intellectual thinking in America. “The Universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Spirit is present everywhere." This new voice led American Romanticism to a new and mature period, the period of New England Transcendentalism. This was the most significant development of American literature in the mid-19th century. "New England Transcendentalism" or "American Renaissance" (1836---1855) was the first American intellectual movement, which exerted a tremendous impact on the consciousness of American people. As Lawrence Buell states, “To proclaim transcendentalism's impact, however, is easier than to define it, for the movement was loosely organized and its boundaries were indistinct” (Elliott 364).

New England Transcendentalism was, in essence, romantic idealism on Puritan soil. It was a system of thought that originated from three sources. First William Ellery Channing (1780---1842) was an American Unitarian clergyman. His Unitarianism represented a thoughtful revolt against orthodox Puritanism. Unitarianism believed God as one being, rejecting the doctrine of trinity, stressing the tolerance of difference in religious opinion, and giving each congregation the free control of its own affairs and its independent authority. It laid the

foundation for the central doctrines of transcendentalism. Secondly, the idealistic philosophy from France and Germany exerted enormous impact on American intellectuals. Thirdly, oriental mysticism as revealed in Hindu and Chinese classics reached America in English translations. As a result, New England Transcendentalism blended native American tradition with foreign influences.

Dissatisfied with the materialistic-oriented society and eager to save the soul with a doctrine of the mind, some American intellectuals were so athirst for new ideas that they formed an informal discussing group, the Transcendental Club, with some thirty men and women of Boston and Concord in 1836. They were strongly influenced by the new German idealism and delighted in abstract discussion. They met irregularly over the next four years at Ralph Waldo Emerson's home in Concord for the purpose of discussing the new ideas of life and society. This club was the first and most famous of a series of forums that served during the next few decades as social gathering points. It became the movement's magnetic center. From 1836 to 1835, they advocated their views and principles in various magazines. Besides, they even published their journal. The Dial (1840-1844).

Their meetings and their journal promoted this movement and added prominence to it. Many people interested in the new ideas of transc

endentalism were impressed by the brotherhood of humanity. In order to separate themselves from the evil society, they made two communitarian experiments by establishing ideal communities. George Ripley (1802-1880) set up the Brook Farm on Boston's outskirts, which ran from 1841 to 1847 with emphasis on cooperation without competition. On this farm, people shared in domestic and physical labor, and secured material and cultural welfare. It stressed educational reform and its most distinguished institution was its school. The great novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (1806-1864) was once its member. It is a pity that a disastrous fire in the uninsured main building put and end to this experiment. The second experiment is Fruitlands, near Harvard, set up by Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) in 1843. On this farm , Alcott stressed the absolute avoidance of exploitation of man and beast. It lasted less than a year because it was more extreme in practice than the Brook Farm. Alcott also helped to organize and preside over the concord School of Philosophy (1879-1888), a summer seminar. This was the last significant activity of transcendentalism. However, in the 1830s and 1840s, transcendentalism was treated in newspapers and magazines as something between a national laughing stock and a clear menace to organized religion.

The core of the transcendentalist view is that people can transcend feelings and reason and directly understand the truth. It believes that everything in the human world is a microcosm of the universe - "the world shrinks itself into a drop of dew" (Emerson's words).

Transcendentalists emphasize the essential unity of all things, that all things are conditioned by the Oversoul, and that the human soul is consistent with the Oversoul. This affirmation of the divinity of man made transcendentalists defy external authority and tradition and rely on their own direct experience. "Believe in thyself," Emerson's famous saying became the motto of the Transcendentalists. Although this transcendentalist view belongs to idealism, it emphasizes human subjective initiative and helps to break the shackles of Calvinistic dogmas such as "human nature is evil" and "predestination", and creates a romantic literature that is passionate and expresses individuality. laid the ideological foundation. Under the influence of this thought, the "New England Renaissance" emerged in the American literary world. The seaside city of Boston has become the center of this "Renaissance" with its favorable conditions of time, place and people.

General usage in English:

Transcendental, transcendental; transcendental ,transcendent.

Kant’s transcendental in German is transzendental (English transcendental), which means fishyu

The ones quoted above

lt; those are not related to objects, but It is knowledge related to our way of knowing objects. As long as they are possible a priori, they are called 'transcendental'gt;

In Kant's usage, transcendental transzendental is our a priori (a The cognitive ability of priori), which includes the ability to understand time and space, the ability to distinguish dreams from reality, etc., is the basis and fundamental condition for all experience and knowledge.

Kant’s transcendence is transzendent in German (transcendent in English). It means a category that is beyond the scope of human experience and beyond human cognitive abilities, such as God, the soul after death, etc.

American transcendentalism (transcendentalism) is a philosophical (literary) sect.

Although the word also comes from transcendental, its meaning is the same as Kant’s philosophy.

Transcendentalism (transcendentalism) is different.

Emerson’s transcendentalism is a mystical philosophy, which is more like a pantheism.

They believe that God exists in people and nature, that all things have animism, and that people You need to rely on your own intuition to transcend the senses of the five senses and reach a higher level of truth.