Correspondence in Transcendentalism

Correspondence in Transcendentalism

Everything, according to the Transcendentalists, is connected. The universe contains all of us, and each of us contains the universe in our soul. Isn't that like The Force? Or just some hippy New Age idea? Either way (or, um, neither), it's central to Transcendentalist thought.

The fact of the matter is, the Transcendentalists believed that what's inside us mirrors what's outside us, and vice versa. The inward and the outward correspond, in other words. If we're happy and smiling, then the sun shining is going to reflect our internal mood. And if it's raining, well, rain can be happy too, can't it?

Chew on This

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Nature," goodness, truth, and beauty all correspond to one another. And that's what quote #2 all about.

In "Song of Myself," Walt Whitman emphasizes the correspondence between the soul and the body, heaven and hell. And quote #3 here will show ya all about that.