Transcendentalism was the name given to the New England movement of the 1830s and 1840s that brought together Romanticism in literature and social reform in politics. Its partisans argued for the rights of women, the abolition of slavery, and, in some cases, the socialization of labor and equal distribution of profits. They were Americaās first avant-garde.
This volume presents substantial selections from the writings of key American Transcendentalists, such as George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, Orestes Brownson, Theodore Parker, and Bronson Alcott. Included are sermons and diary entries, essays on labor, religion, education, and literature, on German metaphysics and Coleridgeās philosophy of mind. Many are expressive of the movementās over-arching project: to define the innermost meanings of democracyāthe nature of man, his place in the world, and his relation to the divine. First published in 1966, the book has been updated and expanded for this edition.
George HochfieldĀ is professor emeritus at the State University of New York, Buffalo.