American Romanticism

1. American Romanticism 1820-1865

2. National Optimism • Rapid expansion of US acreage and population • Louisiana Purchase and Gold Rush • Agricultural advancement • Industrial advancement • Frontier • Technological advancements

3. Problems Facing the Nation SECTIONALISM • North vs. South • Economic security/superiority • Slavery expansion • Political leadership

4. Beginnings of American Literature • Was American lit. to be “strikingly American”? • Narrower view • Resulted in hokey work that tried to encompass American in its entirety, praising its past and supposed future greatness

5. Or… • Was American writing to be universal and comparable to the great works of Europe? • Broader view that wound up prevailing • Aided by the achievement of Romantic writers

6. Puritanism ~ 1620-1700 • Purpose for Literature: • provide spiritual insight and instruction • Mostly sermons, theological studies, and hymns • Puritan Style • Simple, Sparce, Straightforward.

7. The Founding Fathers: Neoclassicists 1750-1800 Rationalism Emphasized reason, harmony, and restraint Also some embraced Deism

8. American Romanticism • Roots in Europe • In the U.S., it ran from 1820-1865 • Of all the literary and philosophical movements, this one has probably most affected the perception of people’s relationships to others and to God.

9. Romance: Less formal version of epic • Noble character on a series of adventures • Pastoral (wilderness) setting • Love interest and the idealization of women

10. Characteristics of American Literary Romanticism 1. INDIVIDUALISM • Popularized by the frontier tradition • Jacksonian democracy • Abolitionism

11. Rejection of the Puritan belief in total depravity: • People were naturally benevolent • Mind was a tabula rosa at birth • individuals are born without built-in mental content • and that their knowledge comes from experience • and perception ("blank slate“) • Corrupted by institutions that sought to dehumanize individuals • People worth highlighting are those closest to Nature • “Noble savage” • Truth can best be found in Nature… • unadulterated, uncorrupted by man • …the purest form of man was the • most Native.

12. 2. IMAGINATION • Reaction against the earlier age’s emphasis on Reason

13. 3. EMOTION • Feeling is now considered superior to rationality or intellect, as the mode of perceiving and experiencing reality • Intuition leads one to truth • Truth/reality are now highly subjective

14. 4. NATURE • The means of knowing Truth • God reveals himself solely through Nature • Nature becomes a moral teacher • Eden-like and untouched by Adam’s fall • A retreat for men • U.S. literature full of lavish descriptions of Nature • U.S. literature different in the sense of wild Nature vs. Europe’s cultivated Nature

15. 5. DISTANT SETTINGS • Both in terms of time and place • Used to comment on attitudes of the time period

16. Transcendentalists 1840-1855 Part of the American Romantic Movement Believed that: Truth could not be perceived with the five senses Human soul is part of the Oversoul or universal spirit, which it returns to at a person’s death Held nature in as an object of worship

17. Anti-Transcendentalism Hawthorne and Melville • Evil Abounds • Not Optimistic

18. GOTHIC ROMANTICISM EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) In his short stories and poetry applied universal standards of literary criticism. Developed the American short story; brevity concept.

19. American Authors

20. THE KNICKERBOCKERS 1.WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859) • Not so much fiction as “sketches” • Distinctly American settings and characters • The History of New York • Narrator: Diedrich Knickerbocker • “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

21. 2. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851) • First successful American author • Grew up in Cooperstown, NY • Wrote 32 novels, including The Last of the Mohicans and The Leatherstocking Tales

22. NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL • (Fireside Poets) • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Oliver Wendell Holmes • John Greenleaf Whittier • James Russell Lowell • 5. William Cullen Bryant

23. The Fireside Poets America’s First Literary Stars

24. We watched the first red blaze appear,Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleamOn whitewashed wall and sagging beam,Until the old, rude-furnished roomBurst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;While radiant with a mimic flameOutside the sparkling drift became,And through the bare-boughed lilac-treeOur own warm hearth seemed blazing free. from Snow-bound, John Greenleaf Whittier

25. What are the Fireside Poets? • First group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. • Notable for their scholarship and the resilience of their lines and themes. • Preferred conventional forms over experimentation. Attention to rhyme and strict metrical cadences made their work popular for memorization and recitation. • Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter.

26. Who were the Fireside Poets? • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • William Cullen Bryant • James Russell Lowell • Oliver Wendell Holmes • John Greenleaf Whittier

27. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • 1807-1882 • Composed “Song of Hiawatha” • “Paul Revere’s Ride” (ballad – narrative poem) • “Psalm of Life” • “The Day Is Done” • “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” • “The Cross of Snow” (sonnet – 14 line poem – Italian sonnet: octave + sestet) • Translated Dante’s Inferno from Italian into English

28. William Cullen Bryant • 1794-1878 • Composed “To a Waterfowl” and “Thanatopsis” • One of the founders of the Republican party and supporter of Lincoln

29. James Russell Lowell • 1819-1891 • Composed “The First Snowfall” and “The Present Crisis” and “Under the Old Elm” • Active in anti-slavery causes • Satirist and critic • Lyric poet, best remembered for his nature poems

30. Oliver Wendell Holmes • 1809-1894 • Son of a Calvinist minister • Medical doctor – invented the term “anesthesia.” • one of the founding editors of the journal Atlantic Monthly in 1857 • Composed “Old Ironsides,” which saved the U.S.S. Constitution from the scrap yard • Father of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. http://www.online-literature.com/oliver-holmes/

31. John Greenleaf Whittier • 1807-1892 • Son of Quakers • Little formal schooling • Composed Snow-bound , “Maude Muller” and “Barefoot Boy” • Devoted to social causes • Active in anti-slavery movement • helped to found Atlantic Monthly in 1857 • The Civil War inspired the famous poem "Barbara Frietchie" http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/720

32. Lasting Impact of Fireside Poets • Longfellow remained the most popular American poet for decades. When Poe criticized him, he was all but ostracized. Longfellow remains the only American poet to be immortalized by a bust in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner • They took on causes in their poetry, such as the abolition of slavery, which brought the issues to the forefront in a palatable way. • Through their scholarship and editorial efforts, they paved the way for later Romantic writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman.

33. TRANSCENDENTAL OPTIMISTS • RALPH WALDO EMERSON • Famous for poetry, Nature,and • “Self-Reliance” • Spokesman for transcendentalism • very optimistic about humans’ benevolent nature • Spent much of his life in Concord, Mass • Lectured and made the rounds as a proponent of transcendentalism (lyceum)

34. TRANSCENDENTAL OPTIMISTS HENRY DAVID THOREAU Probably best known for Civil Disobedience and Walden Practiced his own preaching Influenced future leaders

35. Walden • I went to the woodsbecause I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life . . ."