Transcript American Romanticism

AMERICAN
ROMANTICISM
Enter imagination
SHIFT FROM CLASSICISM
TO ROMANTICISM
 Classicism = the belief that reason dominates nature and
human nature & both are ruled by fixed and unchanging laws
 The United States came together as a nation during this period
(Classicism = roughly 1750-1850)
 Well known Classicists:
• Thomas Paine
• Ben Franklin
• Patrick Henry
ROMANTIC
NONROMANTIC/CLASSICAL
Emotional
Reasonable and Practical
Individualistic
Public Responsibility
Revolutionary
Conservative
Loves Solitude & Nature
Loves Public, Urban Life
Fantasy/Introspection
The Particular
External Reality
The Universal
Subjective Perception
Objective Science
ROMANTIC
Right Brain
NONROMANTIC/CLASSICAL
Left Brain
Satisfaction of Desire
Desire Repressed
Organic
Mechanical
Creative Energy/Power
Form
Exotic
Mundane
"Noble Savage"/Outcasts
Bourgeois Family
Idealist Philosophy
Materialist/Empirical
Philosophy
A PERIOD OF GREAT
CULTURAL CHANGE
 Romanticism focused on emotions and the individual
 Writers in this time period (roughly 1830-1870)
emphasized…
• Intuition
• Imagination
• Human potential for social progress and
spiritual growth
 The Humanitarian Reform was a mark of this time
period
Well-known Romanticists

Edgar Allan Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Walt Whitman

Herman Melville

Washington Irving

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
CHARACTERISTIC
SUBJECT: NATURE
 Nature: beauty, strangeness, & the mystery of nature
• Washington Irving, author of “The Legend of Sleepy
Hollow” & “Rip Van Winkle,” explored nature through
legend and folklore
• James Fennimore Cooper (1st major American
novelist), author of Last of the Mohicans, explored
nature on the frontier
• He created the 1st national literary hero, Natty
Bumppo
• Edgar Allan Poe explored nature in the depths of his
imagination
CHARACTERISTIC
SUBJECT: THE PAST
 The Past: rise in nationalism = interest in American
past
• Irving and Cooper deal with the past directly
• Irving uses legend and folklore as history
• Cooper wrote about great historical
events: Revolution, Indian border wars,
& the conquest of the wilderness
CHARACTERISTIC
SUBJECT: INNER WORLD
OF HUMAN NATURE
 Inner World of Human Nature: emotion, intuition,
individual, & exploration of the private inner being
• William Cullen Bryant (poet) focuses in the
inward observations and psychological
reactions of people to aspects of life
• Poe takes exploration of the inner self to
great depths