Editing Transcendentalism (section)

== Criticism ==
Early in the movement's history, the term "transcendentalists" was used as a [[wikt:pejorative|pejorative]] term by critics, who were suggesting their position was beyond sanity and reason.<ref>{{Citation | last = Loving | first = Jerome | title = Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself | publisher = University of California Press | year = 1999 | isbn = 0-520-22687-9 | page = 185}}.</ref> [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] wrote a novel, ''[[The Blithedale Romance]]'' (1852), satirizing the movement, and based it on his experiences at [[Brook Farm]], a short-lived utopian community founded on transcendental principles.<ref>{{Citation | last = McFarland | first = Philip | title = Hawthorne in Concord | place = New York | publisher = Grove Press | year = 2004 | page = [https://archive.org/details/hawthorneinconco00mcfa/page/149 149] | isbn = 0-8021-1776-7 | url = https://archive.org/details/hawthorneinconco00mcfa/page/149 }}.</ref>

In [[Edgar Allan Poe|Edgar Allan Poe's]] satires "How to Write a Blackwood Article" (1838) and "[[Never Bet the Devil Your Head]]" (1841), the author ridicules transcendentalism,<ref name=":1" /> elsewhere calling its followers "Frogpondians" after the pond on [[Boston Common]].<ref>{{Citation | last = Royot | first = Daniel | contribution = Poe's humor | title = The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe | editor-first = Kevin J | editor-last = Hayes | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2002 | pages = 61–62 | isbn = 0-521-79727-6}}.</ref> The latter story specifically mentions the movement and its flagship journal ''[[The Dial]]'', though Poe denied that he had any specific targets.<ref>{{Citation |last=Sova |first=Dawn B |title=Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z |page=[https://archive.org/details/edgarallanpoetoz0000sova/page/170 170] |year=2001 |url=https://archive.org/details/edgarallanpoetoz0000sova/page/170 |place=New York |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-4161-X}}.</ref> Poe attacked the transcendentalist's writings by calling them "metaphor-run mad", lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "[[mysticism]] for mysticism's sake".<ref name=":1">{{Citation | last = Ljunquist | first = Kent | contribution = The poet as critic | title = The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe | editor-first = Kevin J | editor-last = Hayes | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2002 | page = 15 | isbn = 0-521-79727-6}}</ref> In Poe's essay "[[The Philosophy of Composition]]" (1846), he offers criticism denouncing "the excess of the suggested meaning... which turns into prose (and that of the very flattest kind) the so-called poetry of the so-called transcendentalists".<ref>{{Citation | title = The Norton Anthology of American Literature | volume = B | edition = 6th | editor1-first = Nina | editor1-last = Baym | place = New York | publisher = Norton | year = 2007|display-editors=etal}}.</ref>