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?