movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern region of the United States, rooted in English and German Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher, the skepticism of Hume, and the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant and of German Idealism. It was also influenced by Indian religions, especially the Upanishads. The movement was a reaction to or protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality. The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was of particular interest. Poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892), whose major work Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855, was influenced by transcendentalism. Influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement, itself an offshoot of Romanticism, Whitman's poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it. However, much like Emerson, Whitman does not diminish the role of the mind or the spirit; rather, he elevates the human form and the human mind, deeming both worthy of poetic praise. Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) is best known for his poetry and short stories, and is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole. Poe, however, strongly disliked transcendentalism. Another American Romantic poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), was the most popular poet of his day. He was one of the first American celebrities and was also popular in Europe, and it was reported that 10,000 copies of The Courtship of Miles Standish sold in London in a single day. However, Longfellow's popularity rapidly declined, beginning shortly after his death and into the 20th Century as academics began to appreciate poets like Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Robert Frost. In the twentieth century, literary scholar Kermit Vanderbilt noted, "Increasingly rare is the scholar who braves ridicule to justify the art of Longfellow's popular rhymings." 20th-century poet Lewis Putnam Turco concluded "Longfellow was minor and derivative in every way throughout his career [...] nothing more than a hack imitator of the English Romantics." There are elements of Romanticism in many later works of American poetry. The influence of Whitman is evident in the work of Langston Hughes and E. E. Cummings; there are echoes of Transcendentalism in poems about nature by Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, and Gary Snyder; there are strains of Romantic individualism in writing by Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, and the work of the Beat