Transcendentalism
A movement of people who, before the civil war, made it their goal to spawn a body of literature that was wholly American and unique from anything the likes of which Europe had seen. Writers of the movement focused on spirituality, romanticism and intuition rather than clear-cut common sense. Transcendentalist literature was also typically very involved in the abolitionist and women's-rights movements.
Some authors who were part of the movement of transcendentalism include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Emily Dickinson, Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, and Harriet Martineau.
Transcendentalism by Sithstress April 28, 2010
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