American Romanticism

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American Romanticism

• 1820-1865

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National Optimism

• Rapid expansion of US population
• Agricultural advancement
• Industrial advancement
• Frontier
• Technological advancements

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Problems Facing the Nation

• SECTIONALISM
• North vs. South
• Economic security/superiority
• Slavery expansion
• Political leadership

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Beginnings of American Literature

• Was American lit. to be strikingly American?
• Narrower view
• Resulted in hokey work that tried to encompass
  American in its entirety, praising its past and
  supposed future greatness

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Or

• Was American writing to be universal and
  comparable to the great works of Europe?
• Broader view that wound up prevailing
• Aided by the achievement of Romantic writers

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Puritanism
1620-1700

• Purpose for Literature
• provide spiritual insight and instruction
• Mostly sermons, theological studies, and hymns

Puritan Style Simple, Spare, Straightforward.
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The Founding Fathers Neoclassicists
1750-1800
Emphasized reason, harmony, and
restraint Also some embraced Deism
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American Romanticism

• Roots in Europe
• In the U.S., it ran from 1820-1865
• Of all the literary and philosophical movements,
  this one has probably most affected the
  perception of peoples relationships to others
  and to God.

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• Romance Less formal version of epic
• Noble character on a series of adventures
• Pastoral setting
• Love interest and the idealization of women

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Characteristics of American Literary Romanticism

• 1. INDIVIDUALISM
• Popularized by the frontier tradition
• Jacksonian democracy
• Abolitionism

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• Rejection of the Puritan belief in total
  depravity
• People were naturally benevolent
• Mind was a tabula rosa at birth
• Corrupted by institutions that
• sought to dehumanize individuals
• People worth highlighting are those
• closest to Nature
• Noble savage

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• 2. IMAGINATION
• Reaction against the earlier ages emphasis on
  Reason

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• 3. EMOTION
• Feeling is now considered superior to rationality
  or intellect, as the mode of perceiving and
  experiencing reality
• Intuition leads one to truth
• Truth/reality are now highly subjective

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• 4. NATURE
• The means of knowing Truth
• God reveals himself solely through Nature
• Nature becomes a moral teacher
• Eden-like and untouched by Adams fall
• A retreat for men
• U.S. literature full of lavish descriptions of
  Nature
• U.S. literature different in the sense of wild
  Nature vs. Europes cultivated Nature

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• 5. DISTANT SETTINGS
• Both in terms of time and place
• Used to comment on attitudes of the time period

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Transcendentalists
1840-1855
Part of the American Romantic Movement
Believed that
Truth could not be perceived with the five
senses Human soul is part of the Oversoul or
universal spirit, which it returns to at a
persons death Held nature in as an object of
worship
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Anti-Transcendentalism

• Hawthorne and Melville

• Evil Abounds
• Not Optimistic

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GOTHIC ROMANTICISM
EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) In his short stories
and poetry applied universal standards of
literary criticism. Developed the American short
story brevity concept.
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American Authors
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THE KNICKERBOCKERS

• 1.WASHINGTON IRVING
• (1783-1859)
• Not so much fiction as sketches
• Distinctly American settings and characters
• The History of New York
• Narrator Diedrich Knickerbocker
• Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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• 2. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851)
• First successful American author
• Grew up in Cooperstown, NY
• Wrote 32 novels, including The Last of the
  Mohicans and The Leatherstocking Tales

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• NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Oliver Wendell Holmes
• John Greenleaf Whittier
• James Russell Lowell

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• TRANSCENDENTAL OPTIMISTS
• RALPH WALDO EMERSON
• Famous for poetry, Nature and Self-
• Reliance
• Spokesman for transcendentalism who
• was very optimistic about humans
• benevolent nature
• Spent much of his life in Concord, Mass
• Lectured and made the rounds as a
• proponent of transcendentalism

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TRANSCENDENTAL OPTIMISTS
HENRY DAVID THOREAU Probably best known for
Civil Disobedience and Nature Practiced his own
preaching Influenced future leaders
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• Walden
• I went to the woods because I wished to live
  deliberately, to front only the essential facts
  of life, and see if I could not learn what it had
  to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover
  that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what
  was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish
  to practice resignation, unless it was quite
  necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all
  the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and
  Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not
  life . . ."