Romanticism and Transcendentalism were responses to Enlightenment ideals, focusing on emotional and spiritual exploration rather than reason. Both movements influenced later philosophical schools, with Romanticism exalting nature and Transcendentalism emphasizing the transcendence of consciousness. Existentialism, influenced by both, had a more resigned view of the human condition.
The connection between romanticism and transcendentalism exists in the confluence of several elements. Both movements were a philosophical and artistic response to the reason-based Enlightenment ideals that preceded each. Where the Enlightenment focused on intellectual and factual meditations on the human condition, both Romanticism and Transcendentalism formed an epistemological framework dedicated to the pursuit of emotional and spiritual exploration. Both movements focus on the state of the human condition, treating the emotional and the spiritual not as obstacles to be overcome, but as fundamental traits of humanity that should be embraced. Romanticism and Transcendentalism influenced the philosophical schools of existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism that flourished in the post-World War II era.
The Enlightenment, fascinated by logical and empirical progress, created a strong backlash from those seeking a more instinctive, spiritual, and ephemeral methodology for intellectual endeavors. It is important to understand the movement that directly proceeded from Romanticism to establish the link between Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Both schools created an imagery-focused aesthetic model based on natural elements and processes in contrast to Enlightenment art and literature, which focused on human achievements in a cold and tactical way. romanticism and transcendentalism were, essentially, movements of intellectual protest.
Romanticism focused on exalting the natural order to separate aesthetic ideals from the force of human civilization. A major concern of the Romantic Expressionists was the idea that social forces were not the distillation of a human ideal but a corruption of it. A babbling brook, a rolling meadow and a sunset lazily descending to the horizon behind a glittering lake are all examples of uncorrupted inspiration, which breed awe in the human soul.
Transcendentalism has taken a slightly modified path compared to Romanticism. While the Romantic movement produced a large number of poets and artists, Transcendentalism produced an equally large number of epistemological theorists, most notably Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The foundation of Transcendentalism is the idea that emotion, awe, and spirituality can transcend the constraints of logic and empiricism within human consciousness.
In this way, Transcendentalism transcends Romanticism, creating a clear hierarchy of human experience that Romantics do not explicitly articulate. transcendentalism emphasizes the ascent of consciousness beyond a rational understanding and basis for a purer understanding. Romance, on the other hand, takes the natural world for what it is: not something to aspire to but something to appreciate as it already is.
Both Romanticism and Transcendentalism inspired later movements, with existentialist scholars particularly focused on exploring the emotional and spiritual state of human consciousness. Existentialism, however, differs in that existential scholars held a resigned and detached view of the human condition compared to romantics and transcendentalists. All three movements used the foundations of emotion and inspiration to reach very different conclusions.
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