American Romanticism: Kantian Roots in Emerson’s Transcendental Thinking

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to make systems of thought come alive from within and let the reader know how in the nineteenth century the world looked to certain minds in ways that were of historical significance to the debates and conceptions of the future. The paper explores the birth and impact of American transcendental thinking in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson to better understand America’s intellectual past.