William Cullen Bryant

 
TRANSCENDENTALISTS 
The country was expanding westward, but in the older cities of the northeastern 
states still – referred to as “New England” – the influence of early Puritan teachings 
remained strong. However, such authoritarian religious organizations inevitably 
produce dissenters. In 1836, an ex-minister named 
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882) 
published a startling book called “
Nature”.
In this volume, Emerson claimed that by 
studying and responding to nature individuals could reach a higher spiritual state 
without formal religion. For the next several years, Emerson’s essays 
(“Self-Reliance”, 
“The Over-Soul”, “Compensation” 
and others) made him extremely influential, not 
only upon other thinkers and writers, but upon the general population as well, thanks to 
a growing popular lecture circuit that brought controversial speakers to small towns 
across the country. In effect, Emerson’s lectures were like sermons, with their direct, 
motivating language. In his poetry, Emerson developed a free-form, natural style, using 
 

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symbols and imagery drawn from nature. His work had an immense impact on other 
poets of the time.
 
A circle of intellectuals who were discontented with the New England 
establishment soon gathered around Emerson. They were known as “
the 
Transcendentalists
,” based on their acceptance of Emerson’s theories about spiritual 
transcendence. One of Emerson’s most gifted fellow-thinkers was 
Henry David 
Thoreau
(1817-1862). 
Thoreau was passionate about individuals’ learning to think for themselves and 
being independent, both traditional American values. He carried out this ideal by going 
to live by himself for two years in simple cabin beside a wooded pond, where he 
survived essentially by his own labors and meditated in solitude. The book he wrote 
about this experience, “
Walden
”
,
was published in 1854, but many of its statements 
about the individual’s role in society – simply put, that the dictates of an individual’s 
conscience should take precedence over the demands, even the laws, of society – sound 
radical even today.