American Romanticism

1800-1860

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Elements of Romanticism Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations. Experimentation: in science, in institutions. Mingling of races: immigrants in large numbers arrive to the US. Growth of industrialization: polarization of north and south; north becomes industrialized, south remains agricultural.

Romantic Subject MatterThe quest for beauty: non-didactic, "pure beautyThe use of the far-away and non-normal - antique and fancifulInterest in external nature - for itself, for beauty:a. Nature as source for the knowledge of the primitive.b. Nature as refuge.c. Nature as revelation of God to the individual.

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Early Romantics

Washington Irving“Legend of Sleepy Hollow”“Rip Van Winkle”

James Fenimore CooperLeatherstocking Tales

Fireside Poets

William Cullen BryantHenry Wadsworth LongfellowJames Russell LowellOliver Wendell Holmes

The American Renaissance1830’s-1855Not technically a “rebirth” of American culture, but considered the high point of the 19th century. Also called the “Flowering of New England.”An Attempt to create a New American Literature not based on European Models.

Who reads an American Book?

In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? ….Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow creatures may buy and sell and torture?

--Sidney Smith

Transcendentalists

Ralph Waldo EmersonHenry David Thoreau

1.Celebration of nature2.Faith in the Goodness of man3.Social Reformers

Dark Romantics

Edgar Allen PoeNathaniel HawthorneHerman Melville

1.Concentrates on the Dark Side of man’s nature

2.Fascination with the destructive power of nature

3.Suspicious of perfectability of people and democracy.

The Poets

Emily DickinsonWalt Whitman

Major Works1850 Ralph Waldo Emerson Representative Men1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter1851 Herman Melville Moby-Dick1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin1854 Henry David Thoreau

Walden1855 Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass 1853 Frederick Douglass Heroic Slave