Transcendentalism was a philosophic and literary movement that flourished in New England as a reaction against 18th century rationalism, the skeptical philosophy of Locke, and the confining religious orthodoxy of New England Calvinism. Its beliefs were idealistic, mystical, eclectic and individualistic. The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson set the tone for the era of transcendentalism when he said, "Who so would be a human, must be a non-conformist-. Emily Dickinson believed and practiced this philosophy. According to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, "She was deeply tinged by the mysticism of Blake, and strongly influenced by the mannerism of Emerson - (954). There is no doubt that Emily Dickinson is one of the most renowned poets of her time, recognized for the amount of genuine, emotional insight into life, death, and love she was able to show through her poetry. This insight is that of a latter-day Puritan, completely divorced from the outward stir of life, retiring, by preference, deeper and deeper within. Her singular style of prose and her ability to discover the vastness of the mind while remaining sequestered throughout most of her adult life define her as a master of American Poetry.
Emily Dickinson was raised in a traditional New England home in the mid 1800's. Her father along with the rest of the family had become Christians and she alone decided to rebel against hat and reject the Church. She, like many of her contemporaries, had rejected the traditional views in life and adopted the new transcendental outlook. Massachusetts, the state where Emily was born and raised in, before the transcendental period, was the epicenter of religious practice. Founded by the puritans, the feeling of the avenging had never left the people. After all of the Great Awakenings and religious revivals the people of New England began to question the old ways. What used to be the focal point of all lives was now under speculation and often doubted.