AMERICAN ROMANTICISM
1800–1860
Key historical events and influences
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Americans had become an independent nation. The country was still in its infancy and was working to create its own cultural identity.
A new generation of writers, called Romantics and Transcendentalists, took the first steps in that direction. These writers helped to bring about the way that we still view ourselves, our society, and the world of nature.
There were a lot of changes during this period, many people moved west and the “westward expansion” began. Also, slavery caused a huge problem between the North and the South. The country was beginning to come into its own but it was going through a struggle to do so.
Early Historical Milestones
•Washington D.C. becomes the capital – 1800
•Thomas Jefferson negotiates the Louisiana Purchase – 1803
•Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both die on July 4, 1826.
•Underground Railroad is formed 1830.
•Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas hold a series of seven debates.
Three Big Ideas
Ordinary Men
Humanity and Nature
Dangers in life
Characteristics of the period
- love of nature
- sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval
- mysticism
- a reaction against whatever characterized neoclassicism
Literature of the time
Here are some of the writers from this period
James Fennimore Cooper
William Cullen Bryant
Edgar Allan Poe
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman
A Romantic’s View of Life
Romanticism, originally a European movement, emphasized feeling and intuition over reason, sought wisdom in natural beauty, and valued poetry above all other works of the imagination.
•Places faith in inner experience and the power of imagination
•Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature
•Finds truth and beauty in exotic locales, the supernatural realm, and the inner world of the imagination.
•Sees poetry as the highest expression of the imagination
Literary Forms of the Period
Some of the works of time period are:
- Lyrics: love lyric, the reflective lyric, the nature lyric, and the lyric of morbid melancholy
- Sentimental novel
- Sentimental comedy
- Ballad
- Novel
- Gothic romance
- Sonnet
- Critical Essay
I got my information from...
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/intro-h4.htm
“The Middle Ages 1066-1485.” Elements of Literature Essentials of
British and World Literature Sixth Course. Eds. Kylene Beers and Lee Odell
http://www.unorth.k12.in.us/HS/curriculum/online/literature_11_amer_lit/unit2_amer_lit.pdf