Unit #3 Intro PPT

1. Unit #3 Intro PPT Romanticism Transcendentalism Dark Romanticism

2. American Romanticism1800—1860 The journey begins! …yearning, striving, becoming…

3. What kind of people? What kind of country? What kind of culture are we becoming? Who will be our heroes?

5. The New Frontier • Post-Revolutionary War • Citizens of new nation –restless Many journey into the American frontier • The frontier was the spirit of America • The frontier provided original American literature markedly different from European writing • “Manifest Destiny” Westward expansion • Many Americans began to feel it was the destiny or fate of the United States to rule North America from coast to coast. • The “Frontier Hero” emerged in life and in literature

6. The Romantic Hero“A Frontier Man” • Young, or possesses youthful qualities • Innocent -- pure of purpose • Possesses a sense of humor based not on society’s rules but on some higher principle • Has 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

7. The Frontier Hero’s Characteristics • Acute and inquisitive • Practical and inventive • Quick to find expedients • Masterful grasp of material things • Restless • Dominant individualist • Generous • Innocent • Morally upright • Physically healthy • Ethically courageous

8. Natty Bumppo“His face…was simply guileless truth, sustained by an earnestness of purpose and a sincerity of feeling, that rendered it remarkable.” James Fennimore Cooper, describing Natty Bumppo in The Deerslayer, 1823

9. Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier! He became famous in Tennessee as a noted hunter, backwoods politician and speaker for the common man. In Texas, however, he will always be remembered as a hero at the Battle of the Alamo. Romantic Hero

10. Daniel Boone: an American pioneer and frontiersman who settled in Kentucky. His exploits in the wilderness and during the American Revolution led to his becoming a folk hero.

11. Fireside Poets • First group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. • Preferred conventional forms over experimentation. • Often used American legends and scenes of American life as their subject matter. • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • William Cullen Bryant • James Russell Lowell • Oliver Wendell Holmes • John Greenleaf Whittier

12. AAmerica’s most • popular poet • “household name”

13. . By the shores of Gitche Gumi, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis, Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water, Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big-Sea Water. The Song of Hiawatha 1855 1855 Longfellow’s epic poem about Hiawatha and his lover Minnehaha is in the meter of a Finnish folk-epic The Kalevala. Dr. Allen is Finnish.

14. Nature as an ideal • Man can live in harmony with nature • Absence of crime • Free from corrupting influences of city life • Uncorrupted by “civilization” • Truth is found in nature • Nature instructs and heals • Nature was God’s finest work

15. Intellectual Reasoninggives way to The Spirit of Individualism • Man should rely more on his instincts and intuition than his reasoning abilities • Nature which was evil to the Puritans and practical to the Rationalists becomes a place of refuge to the Romantics.

16. Characteristics of American Romanticism • Values feeling and intuition over reason • Places faith in inner experience and the power of the imagination • Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature • Prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication • Champions individual freedom and the worth of the individual

17. Characteristics of American Romanticism • Contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual and moral development • Looks backward to the wisdom of the past and distrusts progress (nostalgia) • Finds beauty and truth in exotic locales, the supernatural realm, and the inner world of the imagination • Sees poetry as the highest expression of the imagination • Finds inspiration in myth, legend and folk culture

18. Puritans Focus: God Form of Government: Theocracy—Divinely appointed government The American: a hard worker, faithful, spiritual and family-oriented The American’s values: based on his relationship to God and his family. Truth: Acquired through spiritual experiences Literature: the Bible, personal texts, poetry based on God and family View of Nature: The Devil’s domain, the last stronghold of Satan, a place/force to be feared

19. Rationalists Focus: The nation Form of Government: The emergence of democracy The American: intellectual, politically-active, self-made man The American’s values: higher education, political debate, survival of the nation Truth: Acquired through intellectual reasoning Literature: speeches, pamphlets, journals, almanacs, brochures and autobiographies Rhetoric: derived from the theories of Enlightenment philosophers and thinkers View of Nature: Valued for its scientific offerings and should be studied

20. Romantics Focus: The individual Form of Government: Democracy focused on expanding boundaries The American: the frontiersman, explorer, Romantic hero The American’s values: intuition and feelings were valued over intellect and reason Truth: Acquired through personal journey Literature: folk tales, poetry, the short story View of Nature: place of refuge, holds the key to spiritual truths and healing

21. Transcendentalism Optimism Idealism Intuition Determining the ultimate reality of God, the universe, the self by transcending everyday human experience.

23. What is Transcendentalism? • A belief in the innate divinity of every man and faith in his capability to understand immortality, the soul, and God through intuition rather than through pure reason. • TRUST YOURSELF! The Transcendentalists considered human nature divine. Since the secret voice of God is within man, he has no need to obey any other command. He can trust himself. • . Among the major ideas that the Transcendentalists emphasized were • the desire to live close to nature • the dignity of manual labor • the essential unity of all religions • as spirit of tolerance and optimism • a defiance of tradition • a personal relationship with God • a belief in democracy • a disregard for external authority.

24. Characteristics of Transcendentalism • Sense knowledge is unreliable • All reality is in the long run spiritual • The only apt instrument for contacting the world outside is the mind • By the mind, they do not mean the reasoning process (also unreliable) but a special faculty which puts them immediately in touch with truth without any other aid or contact. • All reality is One. (This Oneness is called God or the Oversoul). • There is no distinction between God, men, and things for they are all participants of the One. • Transcendentalism came to mean inspiration or intuition as a method of arriving at truth.

25. Transcendentalists were idealists who believed in human perfectability. They worked to achieve this goal…utopian society.

26. TRANSCENDENTALISM: Everything in the world, including human beings, is a reflection of the Divine Soul.

27. Transcendentalists viewed nature as the doorway to a mystical world holding important truths.

28. TRANSCENTALISM: People can use their INTUITION to behold God’s spirit revealed in Nature or in their own souls.

29. SELF-RELIANCE and INDIVIDUALISM must outweigh external authority and blind conformity to custom and tradition.

30. Spontaneous feelings and INTUITION are superior to deliberate intellectualism and rationality.

31. Two important leaders in the Transcendentalist movement • Ralph Waldo Emerson was a poet and essayist known for his philosophical explorations of the individual. His most famous works were Nature, The American Scholar, and Self-Reliance. • Emerson wrote on ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, and the relationship between the soul and the surrounding world. • Henry David Thoreau was a poet and writer who explored individualism through nature, most famously in Walden and Civil Disobedience.

32. Ralph Waldo Emerson Writer Poet Philosopher --A primary force behind the flowering of America --Wanted to create a more perfect society--UTOPIA He helped inspire many movements to --improve public education --abolish slavery --elevate status of women --improve social conditions

33. Emerson believed we can find God directly in nature. God is good. God works through nature, he believed. Therefore, even the natural events that seem most tragic— disease, death, disaster—can be explained on a spiritual level.

34. Death is simply a part of the cycle of life. We are capable of evil because we are separated from a direct, intuitive knowledge of God, according to Emerson.

35. “I unsettle all things. No facts are to me Sacred; none are Profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back.” --Emerson

37. Thoreau • Was a social reformer, naturalist, philosopher, transcendentalist and scientist • As a philosopher and transcendentalist, Thoreau believed that was PART of the forces and laws of the universe, not the creator (so he did not have one religion and recognized all world religions) • As a writer, he was inspiration to mentor to Emerson

38. Thoreau’s Walden Experiment • Went to live two years in the Concord Words at Walden Pond where he lived off the land, meditated, wrote poetry and developed a reverence for all living things • Intended to test the ability of man to transcend his senses and attain a higher understanding of life

39. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” --Henry David Thoreau from WALDEN, or Life in the Woods

40. “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it is sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men…have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

41. The Dark Romantics Edgar Allan Poe Herman Melville Nathaniel Hawthorne

42. Who were the “Dark Romantics?” • Dark romanticism is a literary subgenre that emerged from the Transcendental philosophical movement. • Works in the dark romantic spirit were influenced by Transcendentalism, but did not entirely embrace the ideas of Transcendentalism, but notably less optimistic • Authors considered most representative of dark romanticism are Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and poet Emily Dickinson • View: http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/the-dark-romantics-in-american-literature.html#lesson

43. Characteristics of the Dark Romantics • Much less confident about the notion that perfection is an innate quality of mankind • Individual is prone to sin and self-destruction (NOT as inherently possessing divinity or wisdom) • Believed nature was a deeply spiritual force, but one that was more sinister • Natural world was dark, decaying and mysterious and when it reveals truth to man, revelations are evil and hellish • Frequently show individuals failing in their attempts to make changes for the better

44. Writers such as Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe acknowledged the existence of sin pain evil in human life. They formed a counterpoint to the optimism of the Transcendentalists.

45. Tales of the ghastly and the grotesque… Master of the Macabre! Edgar Allan Poe

46. Edgar Allen Poe • Many consider Edgar Allan Poe to be the seminal dark romantic author. • Much of his poetry and prose features his characteristic interest in exploring the psychology of man, including the perverse and self-destructive nature of the conscious and subconscious mind. • Some of Poe’s notable dark romantic works include the short stories "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" and poems "The Raven" and "Ulalume".

47. Edgar Allen Poe • Recurring themes in his short stories which illustrate the movement • Concrete symbolism of terror • Stress on “sound” as a tool of fear (use in combination with description of the environment) • Setting plays a significant role; highlights the major elements of mystery

48. “To one who has weathered Cape Horn as a common sailor,” Melville wrote of Emerson’s ideas, “what stuff all this is.” A keen eye and a questioning voice… “Failure is the true test of greatness.”

49. Herman Melville • Best known during his lifetime for his travel books, a twentieth-century revival in the study of Herman Melville’s works has left “Moby-Dick” and “Bartleby the Scrivener” among his most highly regarded. • Also known for writing of man's blind ambition, cruelty, and defiance of God, his themes of madness, mystery, and the triumph of evil over good in these two works make them notable examples of the dark romanticism sub-genre.

50. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, from a family of Puritans • "The Scarlet Letter” • Themes centered on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have a moral message