I enjoyed writing and submitting this. What do you think?

    A simple definition for transcendentalism might be a belief that divinity pervades all nature, and that to comprehend the divine, one must appreciate nature and individuality for their subjective worth. I view transcendentalism as a sub branch of romanticism because of its emphasis on emotion and perception rather than reason and formulae. The rising literacy and education levels of the middle 19^th century, as well as the industrial revolution, created more leisure time for Americans who had the skills to endeavor in intellectual pursuits. The paintings didn't help me much at all, but they did remind me of some of the painting shows that used to be aired on television.

    Transcendentalism and it's emphasis on nature and self-reliance almost seem to push back on some of the social movements of the middle 19^th century. Around that time, the Second Great Awakening was driving people across the country into churches and inspiring them to take up a multitude of social initiates, including abolition and various reforms, while people were flocking to cities and Utopian experiments to take advantage of the industrial revolution. Transcendentalists, though, preached self-reliance, study of nature, and the idea that all people are part of the same spirituality.

    I think the only part of "Nature" that seemed noteworthy to me was the last sentence: "The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population" (Emerson, Nature 549). This appeals to me because I see transcendentalism's value in its expression of the individual journey for growth and self-understanding. We tend to see everything in the world, not just nature, through the tinted lenses of our experience, but not just of the experience that brings us our current emotion. While it might be convenient to interpret the sky as less grand, that doesn't make it so for everyone else, and some things are open to interpretation or closed to absolute definition, other things are not.