AMERICAN ROMANTICISMEnter Imagination

A PERIOD OF GREAT CULTURAL CHANGE

R

omanticism focused on emotions and the individual

W

riters in this time period (roughly 1830-1870) emphasized… • Intuition• Imagination• Human potential for social progress and spiritual

growth

R

omanticism spawned in reaction to Classicism• Classicism = Belief that reason dominates nature

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

Satisfaction of Desire Repressed Desire

Organic Mechanical

Well-known RomanticistsN

athaniel Hawthorne

W

alt Whitman

H

erman Melville

W

ashington Irving

E

mily Dickinson

J

ames Fenimore Cooper

H

arriet Beecher Stowe

E

dgar Allan Poe

CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM IN LITERATURE

N

ature: Beauty, strangeness, and the mystery of nature• Washington Irving’s use of the forest as a place of savagery, mystery and

evil in “The Devil and Tom Walker”

T

he Past: Rise in nationalism = Interest in American past• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s depiction of the Puritan age in The Scarlet Letter

I

nner World of Human Nature: Emotion, intuition, individual, and exploration of

the private inner being• Edgar Allan Poe’s characterization of Roderick Usher’s mental illness in

“Fall of the House of Usher”

Washington Irving (1783-1859)

C

onsidered the first internationally best-selling

American novelist• Advocated for writing as a profession• Argued for stronger laws to protect writers from

copyright infringement

C

onsidered the first American author to place his

stories firmly in the United States• Promoter of Nationalism• Outspoken against slavery

B

est known works:• “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”