Comparing Emerson And Thoreau

Transcendentalism started to rise in the 1820s following the American Romanticism movement with Ralph Waldo Emerson as its central figure, along with Henry David Thoreau. These two movements often get merged into one because of the similarities between them and they often need each other to exist. Romanticism paved the way for the Transcendentalist movement, which made people think beyond the physical plane and more into a universal way of thinking. Emerson believed that there was more to the universe than our senses and understandings. He believed humans should live in a world full of ideas and imagination than common sense and facts. Emerson enforces the importance of imagination and how limitless it is, unlike senses and time. Senses makes things have limitation and time brings all things to an end. Emerson believes that there is no end, but instead a new beginning. In his section “Beauty” from his essay “Nature,” he states, “Nothing divine dies. All good is eventually reproductive. The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.” Every individual has its own beauty in nature, which ultimately

He brings up this philosophy multiple times in this other essays, but he goes into detail in this essay. He emphasis how “life is a train of mood like a string of beads.” It is important to not dwell on the past and expect certain things to happen because that will often lead to disappointment. The wonderful thing about life is that it is surprising and unexpected. “To fill the hour,- that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.” Man needs to see the goodness in life and not wait to be accepted by society. Transcendentalism is about transcending oneself to the Over-Soul and by living life in the moment and not looking in the past and grief, is the way to achieve that