Research Paper

10th Grade

Puritans

• Saw direct connections between Biblical events and their own lives

• Used writing to explore their inner and outer lives for signs of the workings of God

• Diaries and histories were the most common form of expression

• Plain style- avoided complicated figures of speech

Rationalists• People arrive at truth by using reason rather than by

relying on the authority of the past, on religion, or on intuition

• God created the universe but does not interfere in its workings

• The world works according to God’s rules, and we can discover those rules through reason

• People are basically good and perfectible• The best way to worship God is by helping other people• Human history is marked by progress toward a more

perfect existence

Romantics 1• Value feeling and intuition over reason• Faith in inner experiences and the power of

the imagination• Shuns artificiality of civilization and seeks

unspoiled nature• Prefers youthful innocence to educated

sophistication• Individual freedom and worth of the individual

Romantics 2

• Contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development

• Looks backward to the past and distrusts progress• Finds beauty and truth in exotic locales and the

supernatural realm• Sees poetry as the highest expression of the

imagination• Find inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture

Transcendentalism

• Everything in the world is a reflection of the Divine Soul

• The physical facts of the natural world are a doorway to the spiritual, or ideal world

• People can use their intuition to behold God’s spirit revealed in nature or in their own souls

• Self-reliance and individualism must outweigh external authority and blind conformity to custom and tradition

• Spontaneous feelings and intuition are superior to deliberate intellectualism and rationality

Dark Romantics

• Value intuition over logic and reason• Saw signs and symbols in human events• Their view of existence developed from both the

mystical and melancholy aspects of Puritan thought

• Explored the conflict between good and evil• Explored the psychological effects of guilt and sin• Explored the madness and derangement of the

human psyche

New American Poetry

• Walt Whitman– Cadence– Free verse– Lets loose his passion,

philosophy, and observations in a torrent of language

• Emily Dickinson– Neat stanzas– Controlled rhyme and

meter– Aimed to evoke the

feelings of things– Private thoughts and

feelings

Realism

• Became the predominant style of writing after the Civil War

• Relied on the emerging sciences of biology, psychology, and sociology

• Tried to depict life accurately without idealizing or romanticizing it

• Often focused on the lives of middle or lower class people of the time period