Nineteenth century American Transcendentalist poet, essayist, and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (25 May 1803 – 27 April 1882) was a champion of individualism and a popular lecturer.  He was a leading voice of intellectual culture in the U.S. and influenced many thinkers and writers, including his contemporaries Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau.  Some of his best known works include essays such as Nature, Self-Reliance, The Poet, Politics, and Experience and the poem Concord Hymn.

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