Romanticism and Transcendentalism are both movements that emerged in the early 1800s, during a time of growing materialism and industrialization in American society. Both movements emphasized the importance of the individual and their subjective experience, as well as the significance of nature to human beings. They differed in their emphasis on emotion, intuition, and imagination versus reason and rationality. Romanticism is often described as being focused on the senses while Transcendentalism is described as being more focused on intellect and spirit.
Both movements were influenced by Eastern philosophy, particularly the Upanishads. The Upanishads emphasize the importance of thought over action and also emphasize a connection between humanity’s divine nature and its physical nature. Another influence on both Romanticism and Transcendentalism was German idealism, particularly Immanuel Kant’s work on transcendental logic. Kant believed that humans could know things through reason alone without relying on sensory experience for knowledge about reality; this theory influenced many other thinkers during this time period including Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote about the power of intuition over reason in his essay “The American Scholar.”
