Tossup
A poem that draws on a text from this religion asks, “how am I theirs / if they cannot hold me / but I hold them?” at the end of an “Earth-Song.” A figure from this religion titles a poem that describes “the subtle ways / I keep, and pass, and turn again” and claims “I am the doubter and the doubt.” A book’s narrator notes, “in the morning I bathe my intellect” in a text from this religion in the chapter “The Pond in Winter.” A concept from this religion informed the author’s conception of unity in the essay “The Over-Soul.” A term referencing this religion’s culture was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. to describe families like the Lowells and the Cabots. For 10 points, the Transcendentalists were influenced by what Eastern religion whose society inspired the term “Boston Brahmin”? ■END■
ANSWER: Hinduism [accept Vaishnavism; accept Hindu caste system] (The first two poems are “Hamatreya” and “Brahma,” both by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The book is Walden.)
<Sheffield A, American Literature>
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