A (not so) surprising find.

Yesterday in class, I pointed out some ways in which Blithedale brings up Kantian transcendental idealist ideas. Natalia said that German romanticism, a historical period in German philosophy dominated by Kantian transcendental idealism, was not directly related to American Transcendentalism. I'm not convinced. There are too many parallels and references in Blithdale for me to accept that there isn't a strong indirect connection between the two, and my research confirms my thinking. (This is the topic of my research paper).

I know a lot about transcendental idealism, but not so much about American Transcendentalism. So, in order to find out where I needed to look, I googled it and was directed to a number of websites which posted bibliographies. The one I decided I trusted the most listed a few sources that looked like an overview of the movement as a whole, so I picked a couple more-or-less at random from among their list.

I was shocked and pleased to find that one of the books I checked out on American Transcendetalism is actually a inquiry into the philosophic roots of the movement, and it spends a full chapter discussing the relation between transcendental idealism and American Transcendentalism. In particular it discusses the way in which the Kantian ideas which define the philosophic movement shaped the much-hailed Emerson's work. The book also contains a section about the influence of German romanticism on the American movement.

I say that this find was (not so) surprising because I was surprised to see something so relevant to my topic basically fall in my lap, but not at all surprised that this subject has been covered elsewhere, as it seems like an obvious source of research given the similarities between the two movements (they both even have "transcendental" in the name).