American Romantics, 1800-1865

American Romantics, 1800-1865

Historical Influences

Developed in reaction to Age of Reason

Truth = intuition and imagination instead of logic and reason

Inspired by British Romantic period

Americans sought to create literature different than that of Britain

Westward expansion

Interactions with nature and the unknown

Optimistic views – all is new

Increased immigration

Diverse cultures and new perspectives

Religious exploration

Movement away from the rigidity of Puritanism and Calvinism

Pursuit of new spiritual roots

Growth of industrialization

Development of regional identities

A period of prosperity

Growing leisure class

Populace hungers for culture

Strong sense of national pride

Anti-British sentiments

The Five I’s of Romanticism…

Imagination

Intuition

Innocence

Inner Experience

Inspiration from nature and the supernatural

Romantic Writers…

Commune with nature

Assert the value of the individual

With acceptance and appreciation of the common man

Believe good literature follows the heart, not the rules

View the world as dynamic and organic

Pursue solitude

The rural vs. the urban

Embrace the lofty ideals of democracy

Added emphasis placed on individuality and education

Recognize inequalities still exist in the social and political climate

Women and slaves do not have the same rights as white males

Emphasize emotion over reason

Types of Romanticism

Romanticism can be broken into the following three categories:

Brooding Romantics

“Alternative” Romantic poets

Focused on the human capacity for evil

Integrated aspects of the unusual and the macabre into works

Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville

Poe explored humanpsyche, tapped into humanfears, credited with inventing the short story

Fireside Poets

Classic Romantic poets

“Mainstream” poets

Optimistic and hopeful expression of ideas

Focused on the beauty of nature

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, WilliamCullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier

Longfellow - especially popularAmerican poet, wrote work with familyfriendly content,

produced poemsstraightforward inmeaning

Transcendentalist

Pursued types of knowledge that exist above and beyond reason and experience

Disliked materialism and conformity

Respected the hard work ethic demonstrated by the Puritans

Strived for unity between man and nature

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman

Emerson - poet, essayist and philosopher, believed God existed in all humans, saw human

spirituality reflected in nature

American Romanticism

Though these ideas (along with others that were derived elsewhere in Europe) had a profoundinfluence on the literary arts in America, the “romantic period” in this country evokesadditional ideas and characteristics. In general, American romanticism encompasses:

• a desire to idealize the mysteries, dangers, and holiness found within nature;

• a related desire to find solace and escape within uncommodified nature;

• another related desire to idealize primitive (“natural”) cultures and primitive people;

• yet another related desire to idealize the American past (in lieu of a classical past);

• in pursuing these desires, romantic authors crafted literary work that is highlyimaginative, features exotic settings, tends to privilege the individualistic “anti-hero”to that of the traditional hero or the group, employs a less pretentious language thanneoclassical antecedents, and features many wild displays of emotional outpourings.

You should see Gothicism and transcendentalism as movements related to that of romanticism.

1. Combine your prior knowledge of the Romantic experience with the information you just learned to formulate an opinion as to what it means to be an American in the early to mid 19th century.

2. What do you suppose are the forces, philosophies, movements, and problems withinearly nineteenth-century American society that give rise to the desires listed above?

3. How might new modes of production in the American publishing industry play a role inthe establishment and spread of this new literary movement?

4. How is the role of the writer and poet changing within American culture? To whom didhe owe his allegiances before, and to whom does he owe them now?

5. Is it truly possible for a literary artist of “individual talent” to forgo literary “tradition”?

6. In what ways might the act of “idealizing” a person, place, time, or thing producenegative effects for the idealized subject?

7. What is the relationship between the individual imagination of a human being and God?