American Literature of the 1800’s

Romanticism, Transcendentalism, and Frontier Literature

Age of Reason/Rationalism

• Extends until early 1800’s in America• Focuses on logical solutions to

contemporary problems• Declaration of Independence, persuasive

speeches, political discourse• Stresses objective, rational issues:

– Morality & Ethics– Logic & Reason– Justice & Human Rights

Romantic Age

• Begins in America in the early 1800’s, although early elements appear at the end of the 1700’s.

• British Romantics began the movement.– William Wordsworth– Samuel Taylor Coleridge– Jane Austen– George Gordon, Lord Byron– Percy Bysshe Shelley– Mary Shelley– John Keats

• Movement involved all arts: literature, art, music, architecture, etc.

Romanticism’s Ideals• Came as a reaction to Rationalism/Age of

Reason, and to Puritanism in America.• Basic beliefs:

– Individualism is preferred over group values.– Passions are important, and more valuable than

intellect, especially in art.– Inner life is vital to humanity.– Believed in the inherent goodness of humanity.– Encouraged rebellion against restrictive art forms and

social norms.– True wisdom comes from within a person, or from

Nature, not from reason or intellect (or from religious leaders).

1st wave of US Romanticism

• American authors followed the British lead:– The Fireside Poets:

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow• William Cullen Bryant• James Russell Lowell• John Greenleaf Whittier

– Focused on the beauty and wisdom to be gained from nature.

– Highlighted the goodness inherent in humanity.– Followed traditional, British poetic forms. (Note, this is

contrary to the Romantic ideal of rejecting traditional art forms.)

2nd wave of US Romanticism

• 2nd generation American Romantics took the philosophy down a much darker path:– Washington Irving– Edgar Allen Poe– Nathaniel Hawthorne– Herman Melville

• Were not convinced in the inherent goodness of humanity; often focused on human weaknesses and faults, and the dark side of the human spirit.

• 1st US writers to deal consistently with the supernatural. (ghosts, demons, the devil, etc.)

Transcendentalists• This subset of the Romantics had very particular

views, which did not always match the rest of the romantics.

• These folks tried to bridge Romanticism and religion, and were largely a response to Puritanism.

• Key figures:– Ralph Waldo Emerson– Henry David Thoreau– Margaret Fuller– A handful of other, lesser known authors.

Transcendental Philosophy

• An ideal spiritual state exists where pure truth may be accessed. (God? Heaven? Grace?)

• This truth “transcends,” or goes beyond, what science can determine or what we experience with our own senses.

• The path to this truth lies in an individual’s intuition, rather than in any established religion or philosophy.

• This is a specific reaction to, and rejection of, Christianity as it was being taught at Harvard. (Unitarian Church)