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American Romanticism

American Romanticism. 1800-1860. Historical Context. American Romantic Movement. Reaction to Classicism—Age of Reason Age of Reason Rational thought Social concerns Reason & facts Romanticism Emotional thought Personal concerns/experiences Examination of inner feelings

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American Romanticism

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  1. American Romanticism 1800-1860

  2. Historical Context

  3. American Romantic Movement • Reaction to Classicism—Age of Reason • Age of Reason • Rational thought • Social concerns • Reason & facts • Romanticism • Emotional thought • Personal concerns/experiences • Examination of inner feelings • Imagination & intuition Vernal Falls, Albert Bierstadt

  4. American Romantic Movement • Romantics held a keen awareness of the past • Major themes: • Natural man • Lost innocence • Nature vs. civilization Street Scene in New York, Winter, 1855 H.V.V. Sebron

  5. Folklore • Folktales, Myths, Legends • Oral tradition • Exists in variation • Often anonymous • Told by the common people of a particular culture • Often teach a lesson or moral truth about life • “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Irving 1824 • The Tragedy of Dr. Faustus by Marlowe 1564-93 • Faust by Göethe 1749-1832 The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, Smithsonian American Art Museum, John Quidor

  6. 6 Characteristics • Profound love of nature • Focus on the self and the individual • Fascination with the supernatural, the mysterious, and the gothic • Dark, irrational side of the imagination • Yearning for the picturesque and the exotic • A deep-rooted idealism • Idealism is the belief that true reality is spiritual rather than physical • Passionate love of country or nationalism

  7. American Romantic Hero • Is young, or possesses youthful qualities • Is innocent and pure of purpose • Has a sense of honor based not on society’s rules but on some higher principle • Has a knowledge of people and of life based on deep, intuitive understanding, not on formal learning • Loves nature and avoids town life • Quests for some higher truth in the natural world

  8. American Transcendentalism & Anti-Transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau

  9. Transcendentalism • Refers to the idea that matters of ultimate reality transcend human experience • Transcend: to go beyond • Comes from German Romantic philosopher: • Immanuel Kant: • All human knowledge comes from experience, but at the same time, it's possible to have knowledge of things prior to having experience of them.

  10. Comes from Eastern thought: • Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. • Vedas, Dharmas, Sutras • Eternal quality of the soul • Comes from Idealism: • True reality is spiritual rather than physical • Plato: • Sought the permanent spiritual reality that lay behind physical appearances

  11. Philosophies • Puritanism: • God is revealed through the Bible • God has DIRECT action in human world • Enlightenment: Deism • Nature viewed scientifically • Nature used for human benefit • Romanticism: Unitarian • Mystical view—proof of God’s existence • Nature is divine

  12. Transcendentalism • Combination of Philosophy, Religion, & Literature • The natural world is the doorway to the spiritual world • GOD is Nature • Divinity of human nature • Evil non-existent • ALL share a universal soul

  13. Emerson & Thoreau • Leading transcendentalists in American Lit • Put together ideas from Far East & Europe into an American stem of Transcendentalism • American Transcendentalism • Ideas about the relationship between humanity, God, and nature • ALL IMPORTANT: beauty, idealism, self-discipline, spirit, and • NATURE personified

  14. Anti-Transcendentalism Nathaniel Hawthorne & Herman Melville

  15. 3 Major Principles • Nature is indifferent, unforgiving, & unexplainable. • People possess the potential for both good and evil. • The truths of existence are elusive.

  16. Allegory • Work of literature in which events, characters, and details of a setting have a symbolic meaning. • A character may represent a single human trait such as jealousy, greed, or compassion. • Used to teach or explain moral principles or universal truths.

  17. Anti-Transcendentalist Writers • Focus on the limitations and potential destructiveness of the human spirit rather than on its possibilities.

  18. Symbolism • Person, place, action, or thing that is concrete and real but suggests an abstract meaning beyond itself • Flag = character, attitude, values of a country • Skull = death • Horde of coins = greed • Objects and actions have deeper meanings suggested by diction & dialogue, emphasis & repetition.

  19. The “harpoon” has symbolic meaning on several levels: • Harpoon = tool for killing whales • Harpoon = vehicle of Ahab’s vengeance on the whale • Harpoon = Ahab’s attempt to conquer what he doesn’t understand in nature.

  20. As does Moby Dick: • White whale = large sea mammal • White whale = object of Ahab’s uncontrollable obsession that eventually destroys him • White whale = all that is paradoxical, unexplainable, and unpredictable in nature

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