Transcendentalism, according to www. Dictionary.com, means a literary and philosophical movement, associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, asserting the existence of an ideal spiritual reality that transcends the empirical and scientific and is knowable through intuition. Transcendentalists believed that there is knowledge beyond what humans can see, hear, feel, smell, touch, and taste. Their theories were based on the philosophy of German philosopher Immanuel Kant. One of the theories they believed was the idea of solitude. It was an important theme to Emerson and Thoreau and both practiced and wrote about the importance of solitude in every persons life.

Thoreau stayed in Staten Island for one year to tutor Ralph Waldo Emerson¯s children and when he returned from this experience, he built a small cottage on Emerson¯s estate next to Walden Pond. He lived in this cottage for two years in complete solitude. Thoreau thought of solitude as necessary to every pe

When Emerson wrote Self Reliance, self reliance, was simply an idea or a goal he wanted to achieve. He wanted to be self reliant. He wanted the United States to be self reliant. Unfortunately, being self reliant is much more difficult than it seems. The basis for achieving complete self reliance is solitude. I say this because to be self reliant, one must know oneself. To know oneself, one must be alone for some part of their life. Emerson believed that people need to be individual, both intellectually and spiritually. Until someone is independent, it was not possible to be self reliant. In 1847, Emerson left the states and went to France while Thoreau watched over his family. This was one of Emersons periods of independence. He left everything he had in America and went to be alone. Emerson also wanted the United States to be self reliant from Britain. Not only was there much European influence on America in general, but also as far as wirters were concerned at the time. There hadn¯t been a great American writer or poet yet. While there were waiting for this man, Emerson wrote The Poet. It was an essay based on what he thought the great poet would be, do, and say. Soon enough, Walt Whitman came along. He was the great American writer.

Transcendentalism, for Kant, was simply the idea that there were senses beyond the concrete senses. For the transcendental Club, transcendentalism went beyond Kant¯s theory. They believed that there is an intuitive cognizance, or awarenes

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