Transcript 19th Century American Literature

th
19
Century
American Literature
1820-1865
AKA
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ANTEBELLUM LITERATURE
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(1820-1860)
AMERICAN ROMANTICISM
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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(1830-50s)
AMERICAN
ROMANTICISM
AMERICAN ROMANTICISM
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creative powers of individual mind
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regenerative power of nature, American
landscape
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“America is a poem in our eyes” (“The Poet”)
limits of historical traditions, associations
stultifying effects of established institutions
mystical glories of pre-socialized infancy
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almost god-like powers
infancy of USA
self-reliance
non-conformity
possibility of the miraculous in the here & now
AMERICAN
RENAISSANCE
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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1830-50s
spark in 1830s
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Emerson
peak in 1850s
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Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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American writing =
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achieves its 1st significant maturity
coming of age
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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Right Time:
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culturally –
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time of peace
after Revolutionary War
after War of 1812
politically –
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from Enlightenment & Revolution>
optimism re: man’s possibilities & man’s
perfectibility
democracy> value of individual
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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Right Time:
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economically –
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peace after war
growing business, commerce
growing leisure class
coming depression of mid-century, panic of 1837
religiously –
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stern Calvinism = replaced by purely logical Deism
& its (over)reaction to Great Awakening’s emotionalism
 unsatisfied
& hungry for something new, personal but not traditional
reaction to growing materialism
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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Right Time:
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aesthetically –
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felt restrained by Neo-Classicism
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(form, lack of emotion)
less @ form
more @ inspiration & emotion
heart over rules
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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anti-American Literature:
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not taught in US schools until mid-20thC
not taken seriously
seen as subordinate to British lit
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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against idea of American Renaissance:
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selling idea created in 1941 (we need a “ren.” as British)
critics of the period excluded women, blacks, Indians, ….
critics were disinterested in popular writers of the day (not
until 1970s, 1980s)
critics were disinterested in works outside of New York &
Massachusetts
critics had ignored the period’s social/political contexts:
immigration, slavery,…
critics had overemphasized the separation of English &
American literary traditions
*how can it be a “rebirth” when it’s only beginning, still in
the process of becoming
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
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centrality:
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building on writings that preceded it &
pointing to future possibilities
fulfillment of calls for “American” literary
tradition
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from 1790s+
“American” literature:
1820s
1820s
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1st great culmination of American literary
nationalism
helped spawn the “Renaissance” to come
next
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Irving, WC Bryant, JF Cooper, CM Sedgwick
(bigger readership than 1830s, 1850s)
1820s
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LITERARY NATIONALISM (#1):
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end of Revolutionary War (1790s)
sign of a great nation = great national
literature
felt new country had raw materials for it
different moral themes from Europe
1820s
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BUT
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vulnerability, uncertainty, fragility
not sure if US would last
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French Revolution’s Reign of Terror
Napoleonic Wars
War of 1812/2nd War w/England
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British burned Capital & White House
 delay of national literature
1820s
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1815:
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defeat of British at New Orleans by Andrew Jackson
 national identity
ANDREW JACKSON = America
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national mythology
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republican hero
incarnation of the democratic spirit of the age
anti-aristocratic
anti-monarchical
average person (obscure background)
added w/fighting Indians in Florida
became US president 1828
1820s
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Andrew Jackson & Effect on Literature:
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celebration of ordinary people & their abilities
hostility to unearned social distinction &
inherited wealth
(common man)
(anti-aristocracy)
1820s
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LITERARY NATIONALISM (#2):
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optimistic nationalism
calls for a new American literature
North American Review, Boston journal
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“literature of our own”
“American” images, allusions, metaphorical
language
true freedom = “complete emancipation from
literary enthrallment”
1820s
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1820s:
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answered call
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Irving’s Sketches
Bryant’s Poems
Cooper’s Spy & Pioneers
1820s
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NOT separate from British lit. traditions
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BUT alongside
shared language
shared love of Brit. It greats
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Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton,
Addison & Steele, Pope
Wordsworth, Byron, Walter Scott
1820s
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CRITICAL of early national culture:
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reverential to European historical & cultural
past & skeptical about boastful US culture
w/little interest in art & history (or w/a
cultural past of its own)
demythologizing of past (Revol. War)
tempered by awareness of rise & fall of great
nations
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“ENLIGHTENMENT notion
evidenced in American & French Revolutions
 ** impermanency, mutability **
1820s
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uncertainty:
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change in US geography
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Louisiana Purchase 1803 (doubled size BUT also
caused more problems)
free states vs. slave states
Missouri Compromises 1820/21
lack of national consensus
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states’ rights, slavery, internal improvements,
national tariffs
1820s
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nature:
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part of our national character
great landscapes
comprehend God’s spirit in it
LITERARY
MARKETPLACE
LITERARY MARKETPLACE
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British lit in US:
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easy access
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ocean  port  rivers
within months of original publication
tough for US writers to publish in US
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“subscription system”:
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had to arrange committed purchasers prior to
publishing
LITERARY MARKETPLACE
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geography’s importance:
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big cities – big ports = big publishing
businesses
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New York
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ocean  port  rivers
Erie Canal (1825)  Ohio territory
Philadelphia
(not Boston until R/R)
LITERARY MARKETPLACE
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copyright laws:
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no international copyrights
most British works = pirated copies
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no royalties paid to authors
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(DVDs, CDs todays)
 cheaper than publishing American lit b/c of
national copyright
 American writers & “day jobs”
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no professional US writers (except Irving)
LITERARY MARKETPLACE
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1820-65: changes in US that helped US
publication
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population growth
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4 million (1790)  30 million (1860)
Irish immigration of 40s, 50s
territorial expansion
technological developments in publishing
increased urbanization
transportation developments
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canals, railroads
LITERARY MARKETPLACE
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mid-19th C:
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Irish immigration
economic depression
migration to cities
Mexican War that brought 1.2 m sq.miles (now
= 3msm)
gold rush
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 travel literature
 newspapers & magazine boom
LITERARY MARKETPLACE
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newspapers & magazines:
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newspapers: 400  thousands
magazines: 100  600
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Graham’s & Godey’s Lady’s Book
= new medium for publication
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poetry
fiction
personal essays
travel writing
political reportage
women writers
LITERARY MARKETPLACE
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WOMEN:
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writers
editors
successful, prosperous
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argument against women writers:
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inflaming their imaginations
& undermining their moral place in the privacy of home
(domesticity)
SUBVERSION:
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often challenging the notions of domesticity from within
cultural power of domesticity
“RENAISSANCE,”
REFORM, CONFLICT
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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Renaissance in the sense of
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a flowering excitement re: human possibilities
a high regard for individual
a defiance of British lit. traditions, for American
a struggle to understand what "American" could
possibly mean
**rebirth of founding ideals
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Revolutionary ideals
Enlightenment principles
principles of Declaration of Independence, Common Sense,
Federalist
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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REFORM:
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conviction that American literature & culture = not
living up to their Revolutionary or democratic
promises (Enlightenment ideals)
reform movements –
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women’s rights
temperance
abolition, anti-slavery
plight of the urban poor
anti-Catholicism (Protestant evangelical reform)
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a “protest” against Catholicism
*doctrine of reform = central to American Renaissance
period
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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RW EMERSON & Reform:
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personal:
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society:
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Transcendentalism
abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage
literature:
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rejects American literary nationalism as timid,
imitative
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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LITERARY NATIONALISM (#3):
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in RWE’s “American Scholar” speech –
exhortation to break dependence on “courtly
muses of Europe”
a new call for “American” literature
TRANSCENDENTALISM
TRANSCENDENTALISM
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Emerson’s “the Transcendentalists” (1842
lecture)
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“The Transcendentalist adopts the whole
connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in
miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human
mind to new influx of light and power; he
believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy.”
TRANSCENDENTALISM
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Kantian, through his anti-Lockean (only known
through experience)
Fuller, Thoreau, Whitman
the existence of an ideal spiritual reality
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that transcends the empirical & scientific
is knowable through intuition
(intuition as means to knowledge)
(intuition vs. empirical/scientific)
power of the creative imagination
possibility of the miraculous
divinity of the self
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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WOMEN & Reform:
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involved in the plight of the urban poor
& w/women’s rights
Fuller’s “Great Lawsuit”
Seneca Falls Convention 1848
E. Cady Stanton’s “Declaration of Sentiments”
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ANALOGY: men = Britain
social institutions & legal codes serve male interests
New York’s married women’s property act
Power:
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domestic power (property rights)
public power (voting)
check patriarchal power (slavery, temperance)
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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TEMPERANCE:
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drinking = male activity
lured men away from home, wives, children
money
drunkenness  social unrest
domestic abuse, rape, prostitution
“animal passions”
addiction
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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HYPOCRISIES:
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disillusionment ***
boasted US = bastion of freedom & equality
Yet…….
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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HYPOCRISIES:
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genocide of Indians
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slavery of Africans
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Indian Removal Act 1830
few protests by white writers
mostly Indian writers @ bad-faith treaties & land-grabbing schemes
anti-slavery literature
by whites & former slaves
Melville: “man’s foulest crime”; America as “intrepid, unprincipled, reckless,
predatory, w/boundless ambition, civilized in external but a savage at heart”
Thoreau: against Mexican war, anti-slavery
Civil War = holy war against slavery to redeem the millennial promise of a
nation, Emersonian reform, DOI principles
expansionism that ignored sovereignties (Mexico)
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MANIFEST DESTINY
War w/Mexico (1846-48)
Thoreau: against war for expansion of slavery
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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CIVIL WAR:
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April 12, 1860 (Fort Sumter, SC)
April 9, 1865 (Appomattox, VA)
600,000+ dead
most writers supported the anti-slavery angle
= holy war against slavery
to redeem the millennial promise of a nation,
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Emersonian reform
Declaration of Independence principles
critical of American’s under-estimation of costs of war
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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CIVIL WAR:
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afterward:
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reconciliation
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Melville, Whitman
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(opposite of Thomas Paine)
death of Lincoln
failure of Reconstruction
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to educate former slaves
to follow through on reform at heart of CW
political corruption
materialism
anti-black violence (lynching)
RENAISSANCE, REFORM, CONFLICT
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DISILLUSIONMENT
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to live up to founding ideals
principles in the DOI
@ liberty & equality
before Civil War
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re: women, Indians, slaves, Mexico
after Civil War
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re: lynchings, carpetbaggers, scalawags
SMALL & LARGE
WORLD of
AMERICAN WRITERS
1820-65
SMALL & LARGE WORLD
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small world:
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conversations w/each other
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direct & indirect influences
counterinfluences
productive friendships
rejections of friendships & influences ….
wrote responses to each other’s works
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literal
literary
SMALL & LARGE WORLD
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large world:
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beyond the US borders
travelled, lived, worked abroad
interests in literatures south of the border
world literature: ancient, contemporary
looked to the American past (colonial) for
literary inheritance
influenced & read, better appreciated in the
future (20th C)
“AMERICAN”
LITERATURE
“AMERICAN” LITERATURE
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images
allusions
metaphorical language
themes
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common man
anti-aristocracy
critical of US (Subversion)
social reform
disillusionment w/Rev. promise
fear of impermanency
alongside European lit. traditions
media of newspapers & magazines
women writers