Romanticism & the American Renaissance

1800-1860

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Romanticism

Washington IrvingFireside PoetsJames Fenimore CooperRalph Waldo EmersonHenry David ThoreauWalt WhitmanEdgar Allan PoeNathaniel HawthorneHerman Melville

What social factors influence the literature?

How do each of these “-isms” portray the various forces against the individual?

Early Romantic Period writers, generally copied British models of writing

Transcendentalists, given credit for writing first original American literature (American Renaissance)

Anti-transcendentalist, also given credit for writing first original American literature (also part of American Renaissance)

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Essential Questions

• In terms of their contribution to the definition of what it means to be an American, how do these works compare/contrast with the works from the previous units?

• How does the defiant tone in Emerson and Thoreau’s works make them typically American?

• How do Thoreau/Emerson’s vision of the self-reliant individual differ from Hawthorne?

• How does nature’s role differ in the works of the Romantics, the Transcendentalists, & the Anti-Transcendentalists?

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“It was a Renaissance in the sense of a flowering, excitement over human possibilities, and a high regard for individual ego. It was definitely and even defiantly American, as these writers struggled to understand what "American" could possibly mean, especially in terms of a literature which was distinctively American and not British” (Ann Woodlief).

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I. Social & Political Factors Influencing the Literature

• Reaction against rising materialism and focus on business at the cost of the mind and the spirit

• confronted the distinctively American pressures for conformity and definitions of success in terms of money

• Lead to formation of communes by those disillusioned by the materialistic values and inequities of American society (Brook Farm)

• growing leisure class with “cultural pretensions” & increase in disposable income

• Rejection of Calvinism, Deism…deemed void of emotional excesses…writers were looking for new spiritual roots, personally involving and meaningful, not traditional

• rise and professionalization of science

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I. Social & Political Factors Influencing the Literature

• The Louisiana Purchase, 1803– Biggest land deal in history, doubled the country’s area

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I. Social & Political Factors Influencing the Literature

• Education and Reform, 1826– Public education (American Lyceum Movement)– Worker’s rights– The American Society for the Promotion of Temperance – Women’s rights– Thomas Jefferson dies

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I. Social & Political Factors Influencing the Literature

• The Gold Rush, 1849– Tens of thousands of American’s sought their fortune in the West– Towns and cities built all across the country as a result– Established Transcontinental Railroad

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II. Romanticism• As a broad term, is associated with the empowerment of the

individual over and above forms of law and restriction• literature tried to prove American writers were as good if not better

than their European counterparts• began in Europe; a school of thought that considers the rational

inferior to the intuitive• Romanticism developed as a reaction to Rationalism --- people began

to realize the limits of reason• imagination, spontaneity, individual feelings, and nature are

considered more valuable in Romanticism than reason, logic, planning, and cultivation

• Romantics thought that imagination was able to discover truths that reason could not reach

• Demonstrated an interest in nature and the natural world

Consider….

• As a product of the Revolutionary Period, Americans were told Reason would solve all of man’s problems. Out of Reason came:– The Industrial Revolution, which caused:

• Pollution, crime, corruption, and overpopulation and• Less emphasis on the individual

• So Romanticism was an escape from all of this…from the realities of living in the city

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III. Romantic Literature

• First American novelist: James Fenimore Cooper A. Settings: City: often thought to be a place of moral ambiguity,

corruption and death (consider the Revolutionary Period)

Countryside: associated with independence, straight forward moral certainty, and health

• most works deal with the journey away from the town/city towards the world of nature

• Novelists began to explore westward expansion & nature = growth of nationalist spirit

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B. Two Principal Methods of Rising to Higher Truth1. exploring exotic settings in the more “natural” past or “fantasy”

realm2. contemplation of the natural world• characters often involved in the search for truth

Fireside Poets: Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes - written for the ordinary, literate man & woman; copied British models

Romantic Hero: youthful (childlike qualities), innocence, love of nature & a distrust of town life, uneasiness with women, need to engage in a quest for higher truth (Tom Walker, Rip Van Winkle)

Consider the Rational hero was intellectual, surviving in the urbanjungle, whereas the Romantic hero is intuitive, surviving in the natural jungle

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IV. Transcendentalism • Renaissance: as far as America is concerned, the term refers to the

country’s arrival at cultural & artistic maturity• These writers asserted that American culture should no longer rely

on European artistic models for direction• the writers are essentially Romantic, though the authors are

referred to as transcendentalists• Def: one must “transcend” or go beyond everyday human

experience in the physical world by destroying the reality of God, the universe, the self, and other important matters

• Transcendentalists wrote about the “inalienable worth of man” –these writers wanted to extend and even justify the social ideals set forth in documents such as the Declaration of Independence

• Nature was the doorway to the spiritual or ideal world; every natural fact was a reflection of some spiritual fact

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• Highly educated & knowledgeable about European philosophy & the Arts

• Emerson → central transcendentalist & “leader” of the movement

• Thoreau → writes about daily occupations to elevate himself to meditative bliss; he was a protégé of Emerson; best known for his work Walden; presents an exploration of self-discipline and self discovery

• Whitman → writes Leaves of Grass, often considered the most original poem ever written by an American, which was inspired by Emerson’s writings

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1. Everything in the world reflects the “divine soul” - the source of all good that we are all a part of (we are capable of evil because we are separated from the knowledge of God)

2. Self-reliance and individualism must outweigh extended authority & blind conformity to custom & tradition

3. Very optimistic view of life4. Spontaneous feelings & intuition are superior to deliberate

intellectualism• Intuition → our capacity to know things spontaneously &

immediately through our emotion rather than our reasoning abilities; Through intuition, people know that God is good, and God works through nature. Therefore, even the most tragic natural disasters can be explained on a spiritual level.

V. The Transcendental View of the World

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VI. The Anti-Transcendentalists (or Dark Romantics)

• these authors shared a darker view of nature & life in general

• Nathaniel Hawthorne → wrote about the dark side of Puritanism; concerned with psychological effects of sin; his works are highly symbolic; concerned with the relationships Americans have with their pasts

• Edgar Allan Poe → employs emotion of love, usually lost love, as a catalyst of terror; burdened by the sheer terror of the human soul facing death; established detective fiction, first writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy

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• these authors thought that “bad” existed to balance the “good”

• Similar in that they valued intuition over logic• “Bad” resulted when man disconnected from

God and nature