American Romanticism and Transcendentalism

1. American Romanticism and Transcendentalism “ It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, always do what you are afraid to do.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. Romanticism Arose in the 18th and 19th centuries, in response to literary, philosophic, artistic, religious, and economic standards.

3. Characteristics of the Romantic Movement in American Literature are: • Values feeling and intuition over reason • Values the imagination over reality • Civilization is bad Nature is good • Educated sophistication is bad Youthful innocence is good • Individual freedom is important • Nature is the way to find God • Progress is bad • Most settings are in exotic locales or the supernatural • Poetry is the highest expression of the imagination • Lots of inspiration from myths and legends

4. What do you know? Answer: How would you describe the Romantic movement to someone who is not familiar with its characteristics? Read: “The Devil and Tom Walker” pg 320 Answer: How does the short story exemplify the characteristics of Romantic literature? Use your notes as a guide and provide specific examples from the text.

5. What can we learn about each of the following from Irving’s story? New England attitude toward Native Americans Irving’s feelings about slavery Irving’s attitude toward avarice (greed) Give specific evidence (quotes or paraphrases) from the text to support your opinion.

6. Retelling the Story Write in paragraph form, please, legibly and with correct English grammar and usage. The story involves someone literally making a deal with the Devil for temporary gain. Think of a modern day situation in which people “sell their souls” for temporary, immediate reward. Explain. What is the situation you thought of? What are the rewards for the people who dare to make a deal? How do those people ultimately lose?

7. Transcendentalism • A literary movement in the 1830’s that established a clear “American voice”. • Emerson first expressed his philosophy in his essay “Nature”. • A belief in a higher reality than that achieved by human reasoning. • Suggests that every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth through intuition.

9. Unlike Puritans, they saw humans and nature as possessing an innate goodness. “In the faces of men and women, I see God” -Walt Whitman • Opposed strict ritualism and dogma of established religion.

11. Transcendentalism: The tenets: • Believed in living close to nature/importance of nature. Nature is the source of truth and inspiration. Nature is symbolic. • Taught the dignity of manual labor • Advocated self-trust/ confidence • Valued individuality/non-conformity/free thought • Advocated self-reliance/ simplicity

13. The first transcendentalists • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Margaret Fuller • Henry David Thoreau • Bronson Alcott

14. “Self-reliance” -Emerson “There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation in suicide…” “Trust thyself…” “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think…” “…to be great is to be misunderstood”

16. “Nature” • Thoreau began “essential” living • Built a cabin on land owned to Emerson in Concord, Mass. near Walden Pond • Lived alone there for two years studying nature and seeking truth within himself

18. “I went into 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 has to teach,and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

19. “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”

20. “Still we live meanly like ants.”“Our life is frittered away by detail.”“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?”“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three and not a hundred or a thousand.”

22. Individuality “How deep the ruts of tradition and conformity.”

24. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

25. “Civil Disobedience” • Thoreau’s essay urging passive, non-violent resistance to governmental policies to which an individual is morally opposed. • Influenced individuals such a Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez

26. “[If injustice] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be the friction to stop the machine.”