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American ROMANTICISM (1800-1860)

American ROMANTICISM (1800-1860). Romantic What is “Romantic”? Valentine’s day? Roses? Cupids? Candle-light dinner? Love letters? Sunsets? Long walks

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AmericanROMANTICISM

(1800-1860)

What is “Romantic”?• Valentine’s day?• Roses?• Cupids?• Candle-light dinner?• Love letters?• Sunsets?• Long walks on the beach?

That is NOT “Romantic”!

Romantic Love is NOT the same as Romanticism in Literature

• When it comes to literature and the arts, the word ROMANTIC has a broader definition than how we commonly use the word today.

Romantic Love is NOT the same as Romanticism in Literature

• This is a movement about the idealization of emotion, desire, and freedom from constraint.

• "She's a real Romantic." = dreamer, idealist, nonconformist, on a quest for undefined or unfamiliar goals

American Romanticism was……a journey away from the CORRUPTION

OF CIVILIZATION and the LIMITS OF RATIONAL THOUGHT to the integrity of

NATURE and the freedom of the IMAGINATION.

The Original Romantics of the initial movement in Europe

1785 Early Romantics were BRITISH: Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron - poets who emphasized emotion and drew inspiration from the lives of ordinary people.

The American Romantics

Irving, Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes, Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, Dickinson, Whitman – lived in NEW ENGLAND

Causes/Historical Context for the Movement

• 1803 - The Louisiana Purchase doubled the country’s size

Causes/Historical Context for the Movement

• The War of 1812 interfered with trade, so Americans had to start producing items they were used to importing, thus, leading to the Industrial Revolution.

Changes in American cities

• Poverty• In New York, people

lived in tenements or slums—small, run-down, overcrowded housing

In New York City…• 1832 - streets filled with squalor and crime• 20,000 children were homeless and many

worked in sweatshops

In New York City…• Cholera killed 100 people a day

So…American writers began to react to the negative effects of

industrialization by turning to…

1. The beauty and spiritual power of unspoiled nature

These paintings are from the Hudson River School (1825-1870)--a group of American painters known for depicting landscapes.

2. The power of the

imagination

rather than reason

and logic.

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Rain, Steam, and Speed – William Turner

Notice how this painting of a train emphasizes a feeling

rather than a realistic depiction of a moving train

3. A celebration of the INDIVIDUAL rather than society  

 

American Romantic Fiction• For the first time, American writers

stopped imitating Europeans, and an American style of writing emerged.  

  • Washington Irving becomes the first American famous short story writer.

• His stories rely on the features of folk tales and myths.

Caspar David Friedrich

Chalk Cliffs on Rugen Washington Irving

• His stories--like the art of this period-- often feature exotic locales and supernatural events.

“Rip Van Winkle”(1819)

American Romantic Fiction• James Fenimore Cooper creates the first

American series of novels that feature a common man leading adventures in the western frontier.

 

American Romantic Fiction• Writers created stories that allowed readers to

experience grand adventures!

The Indiana Jones character is a modern-day example of a Romantic hero

Natty Bumppo, hero of The Last of the Mohicans (1757)

Romanticism: The 1st of its kind!

For the first time American writers are creating opportunities for readers to experience PLEASURE and ESCAPE instead of merely LEARNING and POLITICAL ARGUMENT.

Remember what we have read thus far:

Patrick Henry’s Speech, Ben Franklin’s Autobiography . . . .

 

However, above all, the most celebrated art form of American Romanticism was…

The Fireside Poets• Got their name because people--instead of

watching TV, playing videogames, or texting, would read poems out loud by their fireplaces for entertainment!

I’m so glad I’m listening to Longfellow instead of

playing Assassin’s Creed

The Fireside Poets• They often emphasized moral themes and

were committed to social reforms, such as abolishing slavery

From “Stanzas on Freedom” by James Russell Lowell

Men! Whose boast it is that yeCome of fathers brave and free,

If there breathe on earth a slave,Are ye truly free and brave?If ye do not feel the chain,

When it works a brother’s pain,Are ye not base slaves indeed, Slaves unworthy to be freed?

American Romantic Poets• often wrote about the spiritual truths found in

nature.• James Fenimore Cooper called poet William

Cullen Bryant, “the author of America”. • Turn to p.338 and let’s read the first stanza of

his poem “Thanatopsis”--a poem he wrote at age 18!

• This poem was so famous that people memorized it.

Kindred Spirits (1849) by Asher B. Durand

A depiction of poet, William Cullen

Bryant and American Romantic painter, Thomas Cole

• Reason is the most reliable means to discover truths

• Emotion and imagination is relied upon to discover truths

• Stressed the spirit of society as a whole

• Valued the unique spirit of the individual

Rationalism vs. Romanticism

• Led by writers with sophisticated, privileged backgrounds

• Fiction focused on unsophisticated, common people as heroes