American Romanticism

1
American Romanticism

• Enter imagination

2
Shift from Classicism to Romanticism

• Classicism the belief that reason dominates
  nature and human nature both are ruled by fixed
  and unchanging laws
• The United States came together as a nation
  during this period (Classicism roughly
  1750-1850)
• Well known Classicists
• Thomas Paine
• Ben Franklin
• Patrick Henry

3
ROMANTIC NON-ROMANTIC/CLASSICAL
Emotional                       Reasonable and Practical
Individualistic                  Public Responsibility
Revolutionary Conservative
Loves Solitude Nature   Loves Public, Urban Life
Fantasy/Introspection External Reality
The Particular The Universal
Subjective Perception Objective Science
4
ROMANTIC NON-ROMANTIC/CLASSICAL
Right Brain Left Brain
Satisfaction of Desire Desire Repressed
Organic Mechanical
Creative Energy/Power Form
Exotic Mundane
"Noble Savage"/Outcasts Bourgeois Family
Idealist Philosophy Materialist/Empirical Philosophy
5
A Period of Great Cultural Change

• Romanticism focused on emotions and the
  individual
• Writers in this time period (roughly 1830-1870)
  emphasized
• Intuition
• Imagination
• Human potential for social progress and spiritual
  growth
• The Humanitarian Reform was a mark of this time
  period

6
Well-known Romanticists

• Edgar Allan Poe
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Walt Whitman
• Herman Melville
• Washington Irving
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

7
Characteristic Subject Nature

• Nature beauty, strangeness, the mystery of
  nature
• Washington Irving, author of The Legend of
  Sleepy Hollow Rip Van Winkle, explored
  nature through legend and folklore
• James Fennimore Cooper (1st major American
  novelist), author of Last of the Mohicans,
  explored nature on the frontier
• He created the 1st national literary hero, Natty
  Bumppo
• Edgar Allan Poe explored nature in the depths of
  his imagination

8
Characteristic Subject The Past

• The Past rise in nationalism interest in
  American past
• Irving and Cooper deal with the past directly
• Irving uses legend and folklore as history
• Cooper wrote about great historical events
  Revolution, Indian border wars, the conquest of
  the wilderness

9
Characteristic Subject Inner World of Human
Nature

• Inner World of Human Nature emotion, intuition,
  individual, exploration of the private inner
  being
• William Cullen Bryant (poet) focuses in the
  inward observations and psychological reactions
  of people to aspects of life
• Poe takes exploration of the inner self to great
  depths