American Romanticism: Taking the Side of Intuition

1. American Romanticism: Taking the Side of Intuition English 5-6

2. Decisions… • Take two minutes to discuss with a partner: If you were given $50,000 to go shopping for a car today, what would you consider in choosing a vehicle? • Would your decision be based more on logic, or on emotion?

3. Rationalism: Early Beliefs The Civic has a better resale value, but the Prius has high MPG… • In the 17th and early 18th century, rationalism was predominant • Rationalism is the belief that humans find truth using reason, without religious faith or intuition. • They would base their car-buying decisions on data: crash test ratings, trunk sizes, gas mileage, savings, resale value, etc.

4. Romanticism Reacts Against Too Much Logic • Romanticism is the name for the school of thought that values feelings and intuition over reason and science • An artistic, intellectual, literary movement • They would base their horse-and-buggy buying decisions on emotional factors: Does it feel right? Does it look good? Will it make me happy? That’s the perfect one. I can feel it!

5. Comparing the Two Movements

6. Why Does Romanticism Matter? • Americans were trying to create a distinct, new “American” literature • Remember, we’d only officially been a country for a couple decades. • How does a country’s literature “grow up”? By reacting against others’ artistic norms

7. Overview of Romanticism • Just so you know where I’m going, next I’m going to talk about: • Romantic Settings • Romantic Heroes • Two movements within romanticism: • Transcendentalism • Dark romantics

8. Romantic Setting/Environment • American Romantic poets and writers looked for “exotic” settings (in the “more natural”) past or to the natural world • These natural/exotic environments helped writers escape the dull realities of the rationalists’ grimy, dirty, and noisy cities

12. Romantic American Heroes • As the US grew westward, frontier life was idealized • Writers of Romanticism argued that innocent American heroes had virtue, not sophisticated Europeans • The good things in life were found in the American wilderness not cities or libraries

14. What is Transcendentalism? • A movement within romanticism • Transcendentalism: the idea that in order to reach God, the universe, and your true self, you must transcend, or go beyond, everyday human experience in the physical world • This is because true reality was found in ideas, not in the world perceived by the senses

15. How Did Transcendentalists Affect Society? • Believed that everything/everyone was a reflection of the Divine Soul • Active in reform movements, because they believed every person mattered, and everyone can be perfected.

16. The Dark Romantics • Dark Romantics believed that spirituality is found in nature, BUT not everything in nature is good or harmless • Focused on the dark side: original sin, the conflict between good and evil, the effects of guilt, sin, and madness • Wrote about the horror of evil