Freedom

In Emerson's The American Scholar, he defines freedom as breaking away from repetitive bookworm type of thinking and advocates forming creative, independent thought. A person can then become "man thinking" (a creative, progressive thinker) instead of an imitator of recycled past thoughts and ideas. Knowledge means nothing unless the reader has interacted with it, and so through one's own experiences one can gain a unique perspective on their surroundings and assert idiosyncratic thought by pushing the boundaries further.

As seen in A Song of Myself, Whitman calls for an undisputed intimate reader-poet relationship that has no boundaries. To Whitman, everything and everybody is linked through shared experiences that can span time. No matter how big or small, anything can be at the center of the universe. The world is a unified body made up of many equal individuals and each voice in this individual but collective body can be heard with the same influence. Whitman celebrates the ordinary and really wants the reader to lose themselves in the exchange of togetherness. Therefore, you can transform into anything you want by losing yourself in nature and finding freedom in the unhindered nudity of one's personal thoughts and ideas.

Frederick Douglass learns early on in his life that slavery was not only physical dehumanization of people but that it was really the enslavement of consciousness. By breaking free from relying on a slave master's ideology, one can accomplish what they need to to escape mental oppression. A slaveholder's power most significantly lies in their ability to manipulate the collective body's mind in making slaves seem insubordinate.

What all of these authors have in common is their coherent desire to revolt against mental oppression and find personal freedom through declaring independent thought.