Exploring the Romantic Period: Democracy, Nature, and the Dark Side

1. Unit 2

2. Unit 2 KEY IDEA During the romantic period, America seemed limitless – new frontiers were being explored every day, and inventions advanced both farming and industry. Yet to many people, life felt frantic and soulless. Is progress always worth its price?

4. Unit 2 KEY IDEADemocracy was flourishing in the early 19th century and citizens felt optimistic about their country. Yet the problems of the age–slavery, women’s disenfranchisement, the mistreatment of workers–were severe, and protestors agitated for change. What role do you think activism plays in a democracy? Under what circumstances, if any, should citizens lose their right to protest?

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6. Unit 2 KEY IDEA Although most romantic writers reflected the optimism of their times, some pondered the darker side of human nature. Edgar Allan Poe, for example, conjectured that in extreme situations people would reveal their true, evil natures. Do you think everyone has a dark side? What might make the dark side prevail?

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8. Unit 2 KEY IDEA To escape the materialism and hectic pace of industrialization, many writers of the age turned to nature and to the self for simplicity, truth, and beauty. In earlier centuries, people had looked to reason or to God for answers. Where do you think people turn to make sense of their lives today?

9. The Early Romantics The Fireside Poets The Transcendentalists American Gothic Early Romanticism1800-1855

10. Romanticism had first emerged in Europe in the late 18th century, in reaction to the neoclassicism of the period that had proceeded it. Early Romanticism

11. Where neoclassical writers admired and imitated classical forms, the romantics looked to nature for inspiration. Where neoclassicists valued reason, the romantics celebrated emotions and the imagination. Early Romanticism

12. Early romanticism was a reaction to the Age of Reason and the strict doctrines of Puritanism. Early Romanticism

13. Early romantics saw the limits of reason and instead celebrated the glories of the individual spirit, the emotions, and the imagination of basic elements of human nature. The splendors of nature inspired the romantics more than the fear of God, and some of them felt a fascination with the supernatural. Early Romanticism

14. The romantic writers’ focus on the individual led to the creation of a different kind of hero: unique, bold, sometimes brooding or eccentric. Romantic heroes were often larger than life, and always unforgettable. The Romantic Hero

15. What are the benefits of following passion over reason? What are the disadvantages of following passion over reason? What is the significance of youth over sophistication? Focus Questions

16. Other writers influential in forging an American literature were the Fireside Poets, a group of New England poets whose work was morally uplifting and romantically engaging. The group’s name came from the family custom of reading poetry aloud besides a fire, a common form of entertainment in the 19th century. The Fireside Poets

17. With the Fireside Poets, the poetry of American writers was, for the first time, on equal footing with that of their British counterparts. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the best-known member of the group stressed individualism and an appreciation of nature in his work. The Fireside Poets

18. Other fireside poets were strongly using poetry to bring about social reform. They were interested in such issues as abolition, women’s rights, improvement of factory conditions, and temperance. The Fireside Poets

19. The tide rises, the tide falls, The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; Along the sea-sands damp and brown The traveler hastens towards the town, And the tide rises, and the tide falls The Tide Rises, The Tide Fallsby Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

20. Darkness settles on roofs and walls,But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;The little waves, with their soft, white hands,Efface the footprints in the sands, And the tide rises, the tide falls.

21. The morning breaks; the steeds in their stallsStamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;The day returns but nevermoreReturns the traveler to the shore, And the tide rises, the tide falls.

22. Notice that this poem has a meditative effect and reinforces the theme of nature’s repeated cycle.

23. A philosophical and literary movement that emphasized living a simple life and celebrating the truth found in nature and in personal emotion and imagination. The term transcendentalism came from Immanuel Kent, who wrote of “transcendent forms” of knowledge that exist beyond reason and experience. The Transcendentalists

24. True reality is spiritual They believe in human perfectibility, and they worked to achieve this goal. Based partly on the philosophy of Idealism. Key figures: Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau The Transcendentalists

25. I find I live quite happily without those things I think necessary in winter in the North. And as I write these words, I remember, with some shock at the disparity in our lives, a similar statement made by a friend of mine in France who spent three years in a German prison camp. Of course, he said, qualifying his remark, they did not get enough to eat, they were sometimes atrociously treated, they had little physical freedom. And yet, prison life taught him how little one can get along with, and what extraordinary spiritual freedom and The Life Worth Living

26. peace such simplification can bring. I remember again, ironically, that today more of us in America than anywhere else in the world have the luxury of choice between simplicity and complication of life. And for the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication. War, prison, survival periods, enforce a form of simplicity on man. The monk and the nun choose it of their own free will. But if one accidentally finds it, as I have for a few days, one finds also the serenity it brings. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh from Gift from the Sea

27. Why do you think most people choose complication instead of simplicity? What does Lindbergh think makes life worth living? Focus Questions

28. “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and vulgar things. “ from Natureby Ralph Waldo Emerson

29. How can you be alone and not solitary? Why might adults not be able to see nature as well as children? Explain the meaning of “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.” Focus Questions

30. Not all American Romantics were optimistic or had faith in the innate goodness of humankind. Three other giants from this period, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville are what have been call “brooding” romantics or “anti-transcendentalists.” American Gothic:The Brooding: Romantics

31. Theirs is a complex philosophy, filled with dark currents and a deep awareness of the human capacity for evil. Their stories are characterized by a probing of the inner life of their characters, and examination of the complex and often mysterious forces that motivate human behavior. They are romantics, however, in their emphasis on emotion, nature, the individual, and the unusual. American Gothic:The “Brooding: Romantics