Transcript Elements of Literature Sixth Course

American Romanticism
1800–1860
Feature Menu
Interactive Time Line
Milestone: Rise of American
Romanticism
Milestone: The Louisiana Purchase
Milestone: Education and Reform
Milestone: Transcendental Influence
Milestone: The Gold Rush
Milestone: The Slavery Issue
What Have You Learned?
American Romanticism
1800–1860
Choose a link on the time line to go to a milestone.
1800
Rise of
American
Romanticism
1800
1803
The Louisiana
Purchase
1830s–1850s
Transcendental
Influence
1820
1826
Lyceum
Movement
1840
1850–1859
The Slavery Issue
1860
1849
The Gold Rush
Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces
The Industrial Revolution
* In the mid-1700s, a huge economic change
known as the Industrial Revolution happened
•Manufacturing shifted from skilled workers
using hand tools to unskilled laborers tending
large, complex machines.
•Factories, some housing hundreds of
machines and workers, replaced homebased
workshops.
Historical, Social, and Cultural
Forces
The Industrial Revolution
•The Industrial Revolution brought economic
growth, but it also helped divide Americans
into two nations.
•The North had large cities and an economy
based on manufacturing.
•The South had few large cities and a farming
economy dominated by a single crop—cotton.
The Age of Reform
•In the 1820s, idealistic Americans produced
an outburst of reform movements.
•Many of these reformers were inspired by the
Second Great Awakening, a major religious
movement that reached its peak in the 1820s
and 1830s.
• During the Age of Reform, Americans banded
together in dozens of organizations to end
slavery, stop drunkenness, secure women’s
rights, provide better care for the mentally ill,
and improve prisons.
Rise of American Romanticism
Reaction Against Rationalism
• Cities filled with poor
living conditions and
disease
• Value placed on
nature and exotic
settings
• Characteristic
Romantic journey to
the countryside,
away from city
Rise of American Romanticism
Romantic Escapism
• Valued feelings and
intuition over reason
• Found beauty in exotic
locales and supernatural
• Poetry highest expression
of imagination
Rise of American Romanticism
Fireside Poets
• Wrote about
American settings
and subject matter
using traditional
styles and forms
• Very popular—
families read their
poems at family
firesides for
entertainment
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
Oliver Wendell
Holmes
John Greenleaf
Whittier
James Russell
Lowell
Rise of American Romanticism
Romantic Heroes
• Frontier life idealized in
novels
• Typical Romantic hero
youthful, innocent intuitive,
close to nature
• James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty
Bumppo is the first American heroic
figure
The Louisiana Purchase
Westward Expansion
The United States
• gained all land between
Mississippi River and
Rocky Mountains
• paid about four cents
an acre for the land
• immediately doubled in
size
“Oh Susanna! Polka”
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase
Westward Expansion
• Louisiana purchase
launched 100 years of
westward expansion.
• President Jefferson
sent Lewis and Clark
to explore western
territory.
• More people moved
into frontier areas.
Transcendental Influence
True Reality Is Spiritual
• Everything, including humans,
is a reflection of Divine Soul.
• Physical facts of natural world
are a doorway to spiritual
world.
• Intuition allows people to
behold God’s spirit revealed in
nature or in their own souls.
• Spontaneous feelings are superior to
intellectualism and rationality.
Transcendental Influence
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Combined beliefs from Europe
and Asia with Puritan, revival,
and Romantic traditions
• Published important essays
such as “Self-Reliance” and
“The Over-Soul”
• Had an extremely optimistic
view of the world and nature
• Optimism appealed to people living in period of
economic downturn, strife, and conflict
Who Were the Transcendentalists?
•A group of nineteenth-century
writers and artists who believed
in the goodness and ultimate
perfectibility of human beings.
•Valued self-reliance and
individualism over custom
and tradition.
•They saw the natural world
as a doorway to a mystical
or ideal reality.
The Dark Romantics
Challenge to the Transcendentalists
A Dark Romantic View
I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse
of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom
pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the
feeling was unrelieved by any of that halfpleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which
the mind usually receives even the sternest natural
images of the desolate or terrible.
© 2003-2004 clipart.com
From “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
Who Were the Dark Romantics?
•The Dark Romantics were a group of
nineteenth-century writers who explored
the dark side of human nature.
•Dark Romantic writers explored the
human potential for evil, including the
psychological effects of guilt, sin, and
madness.
•The Dark Romantic view countered the
optimism of the Transcendentalist writers
of the time.
Differences Between Transcendentalists and Dark
Romantics
Transcendentalists
Saw divine goodness
and beauty beneath
everyday reality
Embraced the
mystical and
idealistic elements of
Puritan thought
Dark Romantics
Believed spiritual
truths may be
ugly or
frightening
Reintroduced the
dark side of
Puritan beliefs:
the idea of
Original Sin and
the human
potential for evil
Similarities Between
Transcendentalists and Dark Romantics
Transcendentalists
Dark Romantics
True reality is
spiritual.
Intuition is superior
to logic or reason.
Human events
contain signs and
symbols of spiritual
truths.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804–1864)
• Hawthorne’s short stories and novels
reflect Dark Romantic views of humanity.
• In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” a Puritan
minister decides to wear a black veil for the
rest of his life to represent the universality
of sorrow and secret sin.
• The novel The Scarlet Letter tells a story of
sin and redemption and explores the evil of
hypocrisy.
Herman Melville
(1819–1891)
• Herman Melville’s short stories and novels also
reflect a Dark Romantic view of nature and
humanity.
• In the novel Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab doubts
whether there is any real truth or meaning
behind the appearances of nature.
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809–1849)
• Poe’s masterful short stories told tales of
madness, revenge, and tragic fate.
• In the classic horror tale “The Pit and the
Pendulum,” the narrator barely escapes a
horrible death in a dark dungeon.
The Dark Romantic Legacy
• Dark Romantic themes still appear in
stories, books, movies, TV shows, and
comic books.
• Present-day horror stories and movies
borrow images and themes from the
original master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe.
• The conflict between good and evil and the
effects of guilt and sin are major themes in
current literature, popular writing, and
television.
The Devil and Tom
Walker
Short Story by Washington Irving
Introducing the Short Story
Literary Analysis: Satire
Reading Skill: Analyze
Imagery
Vocabulary in Context
Satire
Irving was a master of satire, a
literary device in which people,
customs, or institutions are
ridiculed with the purpose of
improving society.
In this passage, Irving pokes
fun at quarrelsome, complaining
women:
. . . Though a female scold is
generally considered to be a match
for the devil, yet in this instance she
appears to have had the worst of it.
Washington Irving
1783-1859
Satire is often subtle, so as you read, watch
for its indicators: humor, exaggeration, absurd
situations, and irony.
Analyze Imagery
Irving develops his characters and establishes mood
through imagery—words and phrases that appeal to the
five senses.
. . . There lived near this
place a meager, miserly
fellow, of the name Tom
Walker. He had a wife as
miserly as himself. . . . They
lived in a forlorn-looking
house that stood alone and
had an air of starvation.
What Have You Learned?
1. The Transcendentalists had a dark vision of the
world.
a. true
b. false
2. Hawthorne was a Transcendentalist.
a. true
b. false
3. The Dark Romantics believed in spiritual but
not
necessarily optimistic truths behind nature.
a. true
b. false
What Have You Learned?
Indicate whether the following statements refer to
the time before, during, or after the Gold Rush.
______ Novelists popularize the American
Before
Romantic hero.
______ Western New York represents frontier of
before
the country.
______ The first transcontinental railroad is built.
During
before
______ Education reform begins in
Massachusetts.