American Romanticism 1800- 1860

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American Romanticism 1800- 1860

• Objectives
• Recognize similarities differences in Puritans
  Transcendentalists
• Encounter non-fiction works biographical
  information
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• Understand the philosophy of Transcendentalism
• Create your own Transcendental Society
• View respond to film, The Dead Poets Society

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• Americans looked
• to untamed nature
• as inspiration
• for a uniquely American
• art. Cole was a leader
• of this new American
• landscape painting.
• In this painting of the
• Adirondack Mountains,
• Cole erases all signs of
• white settlement, depicts
• a Native American as the
• lone inhabitant.
• Indian Pass (1847)
• By Thomas Cole
• Examine the Thomas Cole
• painting. What attitudes

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The Romantic SensibilityCelebrating Imagination

• The Romantics valued
• imagination
• individual feelings
• Nature
• over
• reason
• logic
• cultivation
• Poetry the highest
• embodiment of the
• imagination

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Romantic Escapism From Dull Realities to
Higher Truths

• Romantics sought a higher truth by
• searching for exotic settings as in the
  supernatural realm or in old legends and folklore
• reflecting on the natural world until dull
  reality fell away to reveal underlying truth
  beauty gaining insight from an ordinary object in
  nature

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Characteristics of American Romanticism

• Intuition
• Imagination
• Innocence
• Inspiration from nature
• Inner experience

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Emerson Transcendentalists The American Roots

• Emersons thought process
• was Intuitive,
• in contrast with
• Ben Franklins
• Rational approach
• to thinking.

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The American Novel the Wilderness Experience

• The development of the American novel
• coincided with
• Westward expansion
• Growth of national spirit
• Rapid spread of cities

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James Fenimore Cooper

• Created the first American hero
• named Natty Bumpo,
• also known as
• Hawkeye
• Deerslayer
• Leatherstocking

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American Fiction Heroes

• Characteristics
• Young
• Innocent
• Intuitive
• Loves nature
• Quest for higher truth
• Current day examples
• Lone Ranger
• Luke Skywalker
• Superman
• Indiana Jones

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American Romantic Poetry Read at Every Fireside

• Romantic poets used Typically English
• Themes
• Meter
• Imagery
• Fireside Poets
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• John Greenleaf Whittier
• Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Russell Lowell

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In reference to Walt WhitmanEmerson said,

• I greet you at the
• beginning of a
• great career.

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TranscendentalistTrue Reality is Spiritual

• The leader of the Transcendentalist was
  Massachusetts writer and lecturer Ralph Waldo
  Emerson
• Transcendental refers to the idea that in
• determining the
• ultimate reality of God
• the universe
• the self
• other important manners
• One must transcend, or go beyond, everyday human
• experience in the physical world

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Dark Romantics

• Includes authors such as
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Herman Melville
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Values in common w/ Transcendentalists
• Intuition over reasoning
• Saw signs symbols in events
• In contrast, they did not believe that nature is
• necessarily good or harmless
• They explored
• Conflict between good evil
• Psychological effects of guilt sin
• And madness

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Ralph Waldo EmersonThe Early Years

• Born in Boston, Massachusetts
• From a cultured,
• but poor family
• His father died of TB when Ralph was only 8 years
  old
• His mother aunt raised the family of 6
  children
• Emerson entered Harvard
• at the age of 14

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Burden of Expectation

• Following an eight year
• tradition, Emerson
• became a minister.
• Being an independent
• thinker, he felt
• uncomfortable being a
• church leader.
• Soin 1832 he left the
• ministry and headed
• for

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• Europe

• While abroad, Emerson befriended many famous
  writers. Such as the
• Romantic Poets
• William Wordsworth and
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Transcendentalism

• In the words of Emerson
• The Transcendentalist adopts the whole
  connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in
  miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human
  mind to new influx of light power he believes
  in inspiration and ecstasy.

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The American Scholar

• In 1837, Emerson gave a speech to students at
  Harvard. He demanded that American scholars free
  themselves from the shackles of the past. Our
  day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the
  learning of other lands, draws to a close.

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Divinity-School Address

• Emersons second speech to Harvard students
  called for a rejection of institutional religion
  in favor of a personal relation with God. It
  outraged authoritiesnot until 3 decades later
  did Emerson speak again at Harvard.

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Emerson on Politics

• In spite of being
  involved in
• Concord politics, Emerson
  was
• a reluctant participant.
  From the
• first he had believed that the
• slaves should be freed. But he
• avoided the radical societies that were
• promoting abolition. As slavery clamored
• Emerson, against his instincts, actively
  associated himself
• with the abolitionist cause. He contributed to
  the cause
• beyond his means. One of his children once wrote
  in a
• school essay, no house should be built without
  having in it
• a space to hide a runaway slave.

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Henry David Thoreau

• Born in Concord, MA in 1817
• Father was a pencil manufacturer
• Mother took in boarders
• (among them Emersons sister-in-law)
• Entered Harvard in 1833
• Thoreau and his brother opened a private
• school in 1839 that lasted only 2 years,
• however they developed a new
• educational practice field trips
• for nature study!
• He had several loves, but never married and
• never traveled far from Concord.
• He died of tuberculosis at the age of 44

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Thoreau on Writing

• Essentially, your truest poetic sentence is as
  free and lawless as a lambs bleat. The
  grammarian is often one who can neither cry nor
  laugh, yet thinks that he can express human
  emotions.
• Referring to some rules for
• speaking writing he said
• Any fool can make a rule
• And every fool will mind it.
• Success is due to blend of style content.
• He looked to nature as a model for life.

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The Rebel

• Independent and eccentric, he refused to wear
  black to chapel he choose a green coat instead
• Protested against the Mexican War by refusing to
  pay the poll tax - spent the night in jail.
• Wrote Resistance to Civil Government which
  inspired passive resistance which was later
• used by Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Thoreauon dying

• 1860 Thoreau caught a cold turned out to be
  Tuberculosis, which was deadly then
• He faced his coming death with great calm
• Henry, have you made your peace with God? his
  aunt asked him toward the end.
• Why , Aunt, he replied, I didnt know we had
  ever quarreled.

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Imagery

• The use of language to evoke a picture or a
  concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place,
  or an experience. Images appeal to one or more
  of the five sensessight, hearing, smell, touch,
  and taste.
• As we read from Nature, look for examples of
  images that appeal to the senses.

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Birds of Walden
tanager
sparrow
veery
whippoorwill
thrush
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Figures of SpeechWords or phrases that describes
somethingin terms of another and are not meant
literally.

• Simile comparison between 2 unlike things, using
  words such as like, than, as
• Example She was as sharp as a tack.
• Metaphor a comparison between 2 unlike things
  in which 1 is said to be another
• Example He was a tiger in the ring.
• Personification object or animal is given human
  thoughts or feelings.
• Example The purse cried out, BUY ME!
• Symbol person, place, thing, or event that has
  meaning in itself that also stands for
  something more than itself.
• Example pink ribbon is a symbol for breast
  cancer awareness
• Your task Find examples of each in the text.

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Nature

• 1- A person goes where to be alone?
• 2- Truly seeing nature is child-like because . .
  .
• 3- Which part of a farm can not be owned?
• 4- Emersons meaning of nature.
• 5- Feelings while crossing the bare common
• 6- Nature wears the colors of..?
• 7- Why does Emerson call himself a
• transparent eyeball?
• 8- Purpose of this essay??
• 9- Emerson finds this in the woods.
• 10- Emersons attitude toward society
• 11- Use of Imagery in Nature
• 12- At least 5 new words

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Transcendentalism4-Square
MASTERY Identify and explain 3 similes from Nature. INTERPERSONAL Choose a place that you enjoy describe it as Thoreau described Walden
UNDERSTANDING Do you think it would be possible to live today as Thoreau did? Why or Why not? SELF-EXPRESSIVE Create and design a visual representation of one of sensory imagery described in Nature.
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Journal Entry

• You have brains in your head.
• You have feet in your shoes.
• You can steer yourself
• any direction you choose.
• Youre on your own.
• and you know what you know.
• And YOU are the guy
• wholl decide where to go.
• Dr. Seuss