Ralph Waldo Emerson

From 1830 to 1840 the U.S. Company began to implement its expansive attitude toward the West as an extension of borders not only of physical but of thought. However, in the cities of the east coast, the old (and outdated for many) ideal of the nation as Atlantic community had experienced a boost, promoting as centers of national culture-model states of Massachusetts and Virginia (Frank, Pp. 92).

In those years, Boston and neighboring towns and cities were seething cultural activity. Among young intellectuals began to talk of a new spiritual age, in response to the profound dissatisfaction with the old patriotism. The wealth and power of America were not interested, wanted to explore the classical world, the philosophy and inner life. Studying the literary Greek and German philosophy came into contact with readings from India.

In the center of this cultural and intellectual activity were the transcendentalists, who founded a movement dedicated to deepening the feeling and belief that a philosophical system. Frontally faced Puritanism and Unitarianism conservative Christian movement, as he did not accept the concept of divine Trinity of their ancestors, regarded such religious concepts as cold and lifeless negative. His teaching focused on the discovery of truth through feeling and intuition rather than through logic: the ability of intuitive knowledge of the truth, transcending the senses (Sullivan, Pp. 15).

Transcendentalism cannot be understood without taking into account the context of the Unitarian Church, the dominant religion in nineteenth century New England. The "Unitarian" was developed in the late eighteenth century as an appendage of the liberal wing of Christianity, Orthodox Christianity separated from the decade of 1740-50. Unitary philosophy reinforced the importance of voluntary ethical behavior and the ability of the intellect to discern what constituted ethical or moral behavior (Rosenwald, Pp. 23).

According to its particular "natural theology" the individual has the capacity through empirical research or reasoning to discover the ordered and benevolent nature of the universe and divine laws. Divine revelation would be an external process to confirm the progress of reason (Richardson, Pp. 78).

But, as a movement rooted in the American past, transcendentalism due to "Puritanism" persuasive morals and doctrine of the divine light, similar to the so-called Quaker inner light, the "Romantic movement" owes the concept of nature as a living mystery not as mechanical universe deism-fixed and permanent (Morris, Pp. 66).

We cannot hazard a specific cause the start of the transcendentalism in nineteenth-century American society, but we could list some independent events or trends that may have triggered the birth in New England, 1830: the continued deterioration and poor social acceptance of the Calvinist doctrine , the progressive secularization of modern thought under the pressure of science and technology, the birth of an intellectual coming of Unitarianism, the ineffectiveness of liberal religion against the youth, women's rights and abolitionism and the impact of European ideas in the American people and, finally, the emergence of talented young generations and anxiety as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, etc (Packer, Pp. ...