Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Greatest Anti-Transcendentalist Writer

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that the American
experiment in Democracy had succeeded. England, trying again to retake
their old land in ‘The Second American War for Independence', was no
longer a threat to the survival of the republic. Andrew Jackson, the
first “people's president”, had served 2 terms in office. New states were
entering the Union. One French observer stated that Americans had, “a
lively faith in the predictability of man”, and that they, “admit that what
appears to them today to be good may be superseded by something better
tomorrow.”
There were two types of writing styles during Hawthorne's life --
Transcendentalism and Anti-Transcendentalism. Many of the authors of the
period were influenced by the transcendental movement, which was
flourishing at the time. Transcendentalists believed that intuition and
the individual conscience transcend experience and were therefore better
guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason. They respected
the individual spirit and the natural ...

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