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Transcendentalism
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Henry David Thoreau Black and white portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson in profile, wearing a suit and bow tie, with prominent sideburns.
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Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau American essayist, poet, and Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.

Transcendentalism

American movement
Also known as: New England Transcendentalism
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•History

Transcendentalism, 19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. German transcendentalism (especially as it was refracted by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle), Platonism and Neoplatonism, the Indian and...

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