Transcendentalism+Overview

**Transcendentalism**: a literary and philosophical movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, asserting the existence and an idea spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition. Ralph Waldo Emerson- Nature Henry David Thoreau- Civil Disobedience; Walden Walt Whitman- Song of Myself
 * Major Authors:**

  The American transcendentalism movement was part of the 19th century romantic movement. Transcendentalism was inspired by Emerson's essay "Nature" in 1836 and "Self Reliance" in 1841. Believed in a "higher reality," something beyond the five senses. Nature wasn't only beautiful to them, but literally the face of God. Followers tended to be anti-religous. They felt like the authority of organized religion needed to be rejected, and people needed to find God within themselves.   Idealists create their own reality, they don't believe in outside authority, only self-reliance. Materialists believe that figures don't lie, that life is concrete, and there's nothing other than the five senses. Materialists, unlike transcendentalists, respect sensible masses like the government, churches, etc. 