Transcendentalism

The New England Renaissance brought out two distinct, yet influential movements known as transcendentalism and anti-transcendentalism. The two concentrated on intuition and human nature and formed a revolt against previously accepted ideas such as Calvinist orthodoxy, strict Puritan attitudes, ritualism, and the dogmatic theology of religious institutions. Transcendentalism is a term rooted back to Plato, a Greek philosopher who first affirmed the existence of absolute goodness, which he characterized as beyond something of description and …

…that it describes Captain Ahab as an individual who goes after a dream that will not be fulfilled and eventually will bring him death. It shows the evil inside of people. The authors during the movements concentrated on reflecting the ideas (of the corresponding movement) to the reader in a symbolic way through literature. The literature builds the idea of humanity and nature in different perspectives, which reflects the principle ideas of both the movements.