American Romanticism: Individualism and Nature in Literature

1. Romantic Literature Pg. 308 Themes of individualism and nature unified the writing of the American romantic movement, despite dramatic differences in the writers’ focus and style.

2. The Early Romantics • May have been influenced more by European Romanticism prevalent in late 18th century • Romanticism was a response to Neoclassicism period. • Neoclassical writers = admired and imitated classical forms, valued reason • Romantics = looked to nature for inspiration, celebrated emotions and the imagination • American romantic writers = reacting to Age of Reason and strict doctrines of Puritanism • Population exploded, country’s borders moved westward • Romantic writers = individual spirit, emotions, and imagination as basic elements of human nature • Splendors of nature inspired them more than fear of God • Some felt fascination with supernatural

3. The Early Romantics • William Cullen Bryant • 1817 poem “Thanatopsis” • Celebrated nature • Washington Irving • First American writer esteemed abroad • Pioneered short story form • Put America on literary map • James Fenimore Cooper • Wrote first truly original American novel • Celebrated American spirit in frontier novels (Leatherstocking Tales) • Early romantic writers were pioneers of America’s national literature

4. The Fireside Poets • New England Poets • Work was morally uplifting and romantically engaging • Name came from family custom of reading poetry aloud beside a fire, common form of entertainment in 19th century • For the first time on equal footing with that of British counterparts

5. The Fireside Poets • According to Critical Explorations in Poetry, • “Most wrote about American politics and New England landscapes. They publicly opposed slavery. Some, such as Longfellow, presented Native Americans sympathetically. Generally their poems were highly didactic*, emphasizing conventional nineteenth century values: duty, honor, personal responsibility, and hard work. A staple of textbooks, these poems were memorized by generations of schoolchildren.” • * didactic – used with the purpose of teaching or instructing, along with entertaining

6. The Fireside Poets • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Best-known member of the group • Stressed individualism and appreciation of nature • Subject matter – more colorful aspects of America’s past (French and Indian War, Native American folklore) • Only American ever honored with a plaque in Poets’ Corner of Westminster Abbey in London • James Russell Lowell • Oliver Wendell Holmes • John Greenleaf Whittier

7. The Fireside Poets • James Russell Lowell • Oliver Wendell Holmes • John Greenleaf Whittier • Used poetry to bring about social reform (abolition, women’s rights, improvement of factory conditions, and temperance) • Championed the common person • Democracy began sweeping the country with President Jackson’s win in 1829 (he promised to look out for interests of common people) • Whittier wrote of farmers, lumbermen, migrants, and the poor

8. Transcendentalism On a sheet of paper, explain what this means to you AND give an example from your life: “Trust thyself”

9. The Transcendentalists • Transcendentalism – from Immanuel Kant, German philosopher; wrote of “transcendent forms” of knowledge that exist beyond reason and experience • Literary movement • Emphasized living a simple life, celebrating truth found in nature and in personal emotion and imagination • Exalting the dignity of individual • Stressed American ideas of optimism, freedom, self-reliance • Believed people are inherently good, should follow own beliefs, however different from the norm.

10. The Transcendentalists • Targeted their Puritan heritage • Disliked commercial, financial side of American life • Stressed spiritual well-being, achieved through intellectual activity and close relationship to nature • Ideas lived on later through Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens • Lived on through the civil rights movement of the 20th Century • Short term – optimism began to fade when confronted with persistence of slavery and difficulty abolishing it

11. The Transcendentalists • Henry David Thoreau • Essay “Civil Disobedience” address faith in the integrity of the soul • Built a small cabin on Walden Pond and lived there for two years, writing and studying nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson • Said every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth on his or her own, through intuition. • Essay “Self-Reliance” addresses faith in the integrity of the soul

12. 1. Finish reading Self-Reliance (p. 370) 2. Complete the following from Nature (p. 373): • On the same sheet of paper, summarize (in several sentences)what Emerson is saying in lines 1 – 19 • Which aspect of transcendentalism (see p. 369) is depicted in this passage?

13. Homework: • From Walden (p. 380)Find and record examples of the following: (Provide Example + page #)

14. American Gothic: The “Brooding” Romantics or “Anti-Transcendentalists” • Edgar Allan Poe • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Herman Melville • Deep awareness of human capacity for evil • Darker vision of human existence • Stories characterized by probing of inner life of characters, examination of complex, mysterious forces that motivate human behavior • Romantic, however, in emphasis on emotion, nature, individual and unusual

15. American Gothic: The “Brooding” Romantics or “Anti-Transcendentalists” • Gothic tradition had begun in Europe, possibly inspired by gothic architecture of Middle Ages • Poe and Hawthorne used gothic elements: grotesque charcters, bizarre situations, violent events • Romantics freed imagination from restrictions of reason, followed it wherever could go

16. American Gothic: The “Brooding” Romantics or “Anti-Transcendentalists” • Edgar Allan Poe • Master of gothic form in United States • Explored human psychology from inside • Used first-person narrators sometimes criminal or insane • Plots involved extreme situations – not just murder, but live burials, physical and mental torture, retribution from beyond the grave

17. American Gothic: The “Brooding” Romantics or “Anti-Transcendentalists” • Nathaniel Hawthorne • Agreed with romantic emphasis on emotion and individual • Did not see as completely positive forces • The Scarlet Letter and “The Minister’s Black Veil” examine darker facets of human soul (psychological effects sin and guilt may have on human life

18. American Gothic: The “Brooding” Romantics or “Anti-Transcendentalists” • Herman Melville • Early works mostly adventure stories set in South Pacific • Moby Dick – departed from that pattern, concentrates on ship’s captains’ obsessive quest for whale that took his leg • Explores issues of madness and conflict of good and evil • “Bartleby the Scrivener” reveals dark side of material prosperity, explores how struggle for material gain affects individual

19. The Legacy of the Era • Civil Rights • Modern Gothic • The Romantic Hero

20. Works Cited • "Fireside Poets - Summary" Critical Explorations in PoetryEd. Rosemary M. Canfield Reisman. eNotes.com, Inc. 2011 eNotes.com 9 Feb, 2018 <http://www.enotes.com/topics/fireside-poets#summary-summary>