What does anti-transcendentalism focus on?

Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—corrupt the purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly “self-reliant” and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community can form.

Transcendentalists highly valued the concept of thinking for oneself and believed people were best when they were independent and could think for themselves. Only then could individuals come together and form ideal communities.

Why did utopian communities last for only a short time? Members did not work together well. What did people in utopian communities pursue? Abstract spirituality and cooperative lifestyles.

Ann Lee

Anti–transcendentalism was a literary subgenre that focused on human fallibility and proneness to sin. … Hawthorne believed guilt, sin and evil to be innate qualities within humans, according to Education Portal.

Transcendentalism and Romanticism were two literary movements that occurred in America during roughly the same time period (1840—1860). Although the two had surface similarities, such as their reverence for Nature, their founding beliefs were quite different, enough to make one seem almost the antithesis of the other.

Opposite of relating to a spiritual realm. mundane. natural.

Along with Herman Melville and Edgar Allan Poe much of Hawthorne’s work belongs to the sub-genre of Dark Romanticism, distinguished by an emphasis on human fallibility that gives rise to lapses in judgement that allow even good men and women to drift toward sin and self-destruction. …