Reading with the Transcendentalists: Ten Works That Made a Movement

Exploring the books and reading practices behind the creation of Transcendentalist philosophy and community Transcendentalism emerged in early 19th century New England as a uniquely American philosophical, spiritual, and literary movement.Its first generation of thinkers-including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, and Margaret Fuller-created a worldview that stressed the inherent goodness of the "self-reliant" individual and the presence of the divine in nature.These intellectuals gathered in informal symposia devoted to what Emerson called "creative reading," a practice that stresses the transformative potential of the written word that was central to the movement's emergence, growth, and spread.But what were these thinkers reading and how did it influence the development of Transcendentalism?In Reading with the Transcendentalists, renowned literary scholar Philip F.Gura focuses on 10 American, British, and European books that were essential to the movement's thoughts, writings, a