How did the philosophical movement of New England Transcendentalism (led by Emerson and Thoreau) directly shape Whitman's poetic worldview?
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Correct answer: Belief in the divine within nature, individual intuition, and spiritual equality
Whitman absorbed Transcendentalism's core tenets: the presence of the divine in everyday objects, the value of self-reliance, and the sacredness of the natural world. However, Whitman democratized and literalized the movement by grounding it directly in the urban working-class realities and physical, fleshly bodies that earlier Transcendentalists often treated with abstract detachment.
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