Directions: Turn to the introduction to the second unit of study, “American Romanticisms,” on page 138 of your textbook Use section headings as a guide to locating and providing correct responses After determining what word will properly fit into each blank, write correct answers on a separate sheet of paper. Number your answers to correspond to the blanks.
American Romanticism
by Gary Q. Arpin
The Pattern of the Journey
The journey is a common narrative pattern, familiar from such classics as (1) ___, (2) ___, and (3) ___. In his Autobiography, Ben Franklin recounts his journey from (4) ___ to (5) ___, symbolic in a larger sense of a quest by these new Americans for (6) ___.
Romantic writers viewed the city as a place of moral (7) ___ and worse, of (8) ___ and (9) ___.
Therefore, for Romantics the journey was to the (10) ___, with which they associated (11) ___, moral (12) ___, and (13) living.
The Romantic Sensibility:
Celebrating the Imagination
A Romantic writer favors (14) ___ and (15) over reason. As an artistic and literary movement, Romanticism began on the continent of (16) ___.
To the Romantics, the highest and most sublime literary expression of imagination was (17) ___, and contrasted that art with science.
Romantic Escapism:
From Dull Realities to Higher Realms
Romantics sought to escape the harsh realities of life in two ways. First, they searched for (18) ___ settings, which might be in the (19) ___ realm, or in legend or folklore. Second, they contemplated the (20) ___ world until reality gave way to beauty and (21) ___. Wild haunted (22) ___, supernatural (23) ___, and mysterious medieval (24) ___ were characteristic of Gothic settings.
Contemplation of nature was expressed primarily in (25) ___ poems. By pondering a flower or wild creature, a person might discover an underlying insight. Although Puritans saw nature as a manifestation of the power of God, they found God primarily in the (26) ___. Romantics, on the other hand, more readily found God in (27) ___.
The American Novel and the Wilderness Experience
Although American writers initially imitated British or European models, they gradually developed a literature of their own; the subjects available to them were very (28) ___ from those of their counterparts across the ocean. The development of the American novel coincided with (29) ___ expansion, the growth of (30) ___, and the rapid spread of (31) ___.
A New Kind of Hero
Where Europeans tended to see unsophisticated and (32) ___ frontier men and women, American Romantics saw innocent, unspoiled people.
One notable example was James Fenimore Cooper’s character, (33) ___, who was seen as youthful, innocent, (34) ___, and close to (35) ___.
Contemporary descendants of Romantic heroes are alive today in such cultural figures as the (36) ___, (37) ___, (38) ___ and (39) ___.
American Romantic Poetry:
Read at Every Fireside
A particular group of American poets worked to dispel the notion that Americans were unsophisticated (40) ___. They wrote carefully crafted poems that followed English themes, (41) ___, and (42) ___. This group was known as The (43) ___ Poets, and they were in their own time (and for many years thereafter) extremely popular. Their nickname came from the habit of the day of reading aloud by the fire, as a form of family (44) ___.
Directions: Determine the correct answers to the following questions and supply them after each question. Number your answers to correspond to the questions.
“The City, Grim and Gray” (pages 142-143)
1. During this time period, what were the 5 largest American cities?
2. At that time, most children in New York died before the age of 20. List 5 causes for their premature deaths.
3. Which American poet is credited with proposing, in the 1840’s, the concept of a large city park, for the “health and recreation” of the populace?
4. True or false? City fathers thought the park an excellent idea, and it was designed and completed before the outbreak of the Civil War.