Romanticism1800-1860

• 1789 George Washington elected first President of the US

• 1803- Thomas Jefferson elected 3rd President of the United States• Louisiana Purchase enlarged territory

• 1812 War- Victory asserted American Independence

• 1821-10 new states join the original 13

Changes in America

• Factories and mills• Steamships• Moved nation from largely agriculture to

urban industrialized society

Nation and New Literature

• First decades lacked mysterious vitality that made literature

• Later subjects included: settlers, Indians, forest, madness, sin and guilt

• European critics wondered why intelligent people would want to read something from America, yet many American Writers were having success in Europe

• Washington Irving – “The Legend of Sleepy Hallow”

• William Culleen Bryant- “Thanatopsis”

• James Fenimore Cooper- “The Last of the Mohicans”

• Edgar Allen Poe- “The Raven”

• Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter

What/Who are the American Writers?

• People who considered themselves writers

• People who wrote about American people in American places dealing with American problems

• People whose subjects were about freedom, expansion, and the individual

What is Romanticism?

• A literary movement in the arts that attempted to follow the order and balance in the art of Greece and Rome (originated in Europe)

• Classic-reason over emotion and social concern over personal ones (1700’s)

• Romantic-stressed personal experience and highly emotional; rebellion against social rules and conventions

Six Characteristics of Romanticism• Love of nature• Focus on the self and individual• Fascination with the supernatural, mysterious,

and gothic (dark, irrational side of human nature)

• Yearning for picturesque (beauty)• Deep rooted idealism (state of perfection)• Love of country

Romanticism blends into a movement called

Transcendentalism