Hawthorne And Transcendentalism

255 Words2 Pages
Transcendentalism is an idealist philosophy many New England writers subscribed to during the nineteenth century. such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller led the way in the movement. Hawthorne’s life frequently intertwined with Transcendental ideology, and although he supported some notions of Transcendentalism, such as the importance of self reliance and consequences for actions, he could never fully align himself to the philosophy (Turner 52). In fact, Hawthorne cofounded and resided, for a short time, in the Transcendental community, Brook Farm. His letters to his fiancé, Sophia Peabody displayed his dissatisfaction with the community, and bemoans that his “soul is...utterly buried in dung heap.”(archive.org) He later abandoned