- Rejection of reason & logic as the most valuable modes of thought
- emphasis on emotion and intuition
- sensory experience over rational intellect
- Interest in the powers of the imagination
- Love of nature and natural beauty, plus a sense that there is correspondence between nature and the human mind and/or human emotions
- Interest in the human psyche and exploration of the hidden depths of the mind
- Darker version of humanity than the transcendentalists, including an interest in madness, fear, suicide, and psych turmoil
- Sometimes wrote about their own culture through the lens of space or distance in time
- Hawthorne - Puritan era
- Melville - Men from all over one ship
- These writings challenged the role of God and religious life, seeking to replace them with reason
- Rational thought and science were the new themes
Themes of American Romantic:
- Rejection of reason and logic as the most valuable modes of thought
- Emphasis on emotional intensity and intuition
- Escapism
- Common man as hero
- Emphasis on sensory experience over rational intellect
- Interest in the powers of the imagination
- Love of nature and natural beauty, plus a sense that there is a correspondence between nature and the human mind and/or human emotions. Nature as refuge, source of knowledge/spirituality. Nature is wild, untamable, and it is being lost as fast as we can appreciate it.
- Interest in human psyche
- Exploration of hidden depths of the mind
- Despite sharing some traits with transcendentalists, romantics generally had a darker vision of humanity including an interest in madness, fear, suicide, and psychological turmoil
- Wrote about own culture through distance of time and space (Hawthorne writing about Puritan Era and Melville writing about men all over the world working on whaling ship). Characters/setting were set apart from society
- Universe is mysterious, irrational, incomprehensible
- Transcendentalism
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman
- Set of Philosophical, literary, religious, and cultural ideas developed in New England in 1830's and 1850's and beyond
- Power of the individual
- Attempted to embrace science
- Individualism
- Organized political parties and religion corrupted the purity of the individual
- Self-reliance, independent
- Based heavily on Indian religion
- Sub-genres
- Slave narrative: protest, struggle for author's self-realization/identity
- Domestic (sentimental): social visits, women secondary to men
- Female gothic: devilish childhood, family doom, mysterious foundling, tyrannical father
- women's fiction: anti-sentimental
- Heroine begins poor and helpless
- She succeeds on her own character
- Husband's less important than father
- Initiation novel, growth from child to adult
- Interest in the common man and childhood
- Romantics believed in the natural goodness of humans, which is hindered by the urban life of civilization. They believed that the savage is noble, childhood is good, and the emotions inspired by both beliefs causes the heart to soar
- Strong senses, emotions, and feelings
- Romantics believed that knowledge is gained through intuition rather than deduction. This is best summed up by Wordsworth who stated that "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."
- Aw of nature
- Romantics stressed the aw of nature in art and language and the experience of sublimity through a connection with nature. Romantics rejected the rationalization of nature by the previous thinkers of the Enlightenment period.
- Celebration of the Individual
- Romantics often elevated the achievements of the misunderstood, heroic individual outcast.
- Importance of imagination
- Romantics legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority.
- Major authors include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, William Ellery Channing, and Jones Very. Somewhat later, Walt Whitman shared many of the traits of the transcendentalists.
- The term comes from a belief that people are capable of inner, spiritual, intuitive metal experiences that transcend physical experience
- Transcendentalists believed that nature exerts a spiritual force on people or represents spiritual truths; they downplayed traditional scriptures in favor of a belief that everyday life is full of revelations and miracles (if we pay enough attention to notice)
- Saw poetry as the new scripture; poets (or "poetic" writers and thinkers) help to reveal the spiritual dimensions of nature and of daily human life
- Rejection of many orthodox Christian beliefs in favor of a belief that there is a divine presence (what Emerson called the Over-soul) in all things, including nature and people; emphasized the unity of all things
- Influenced by European philosophers (such as Swedenborg) and by Asian (especially Hindu) religion and philosophy
- Basically a positive view of humanity: people have potential to improve and perfect themselves with the aid of education and other forms of nurturing
- Several transcendentalists were involved in progressive social causes: women's rights, the abolition [of slavery] movement, utopian communities, etc.
- A set of philosophical, religious, literary, and cultural ideas developed in New England (esp, Concord, MA) in the 1830's-1850's and beyond
- Transcendentalism was a philosophical movement that was developing by the late 1820's and '30's in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality
- The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was a particular concern
- Core beliefs
- Was the inherent goodness of both people
- and nature
- They believe that society and its institutions–particularly organized religion and political parties–ultimately corrupt the purity of the individual
- Tehy have faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent
- "Self-reliant" differs from the traditional usage of the word
- Refers mainly to a fierce intellectual independence that believed itself capable of generating completely original insights with as little deference paid to past masters as possible.
The American Renaissance
- 1840's-1850's, especially the period from 1844-1855
- Period in which a number of major authors and works appeared, with literature in the U.S. finally taking on uniquely "American" qualities
- Partially overlapped with the Lyceum Movement, a program for adult education that involved public lectures, debates, and other events intended to encourage intellectual growth; the movement began in the 1820's and included lectures by Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and many other figures
- Some major works of the period:
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet" (1844): expressed hope for the emergence of an American style of poetry that would correspond to the vastness of the American Landscape
- Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845): First major feminist text in the U.S.; Fuller also edited the transcendental magazine The Dial in the early 1840's
- Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (845): America's best known slave narrative and the most famous 19th century book by an African-American author
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1849, published in 1852) and Resistance to Civil Government (1849): The first chronicles Thoreau's experiment in self-reliant living; the second introduction to the world the concept of "civil disobedience" to governments and laws.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851): Two novels widely considered to be masterpieces of American literature
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick (1850): a hybrid novel containing a variety of styles and tones; some scholars consider it to be the greatest American novel ever written
- Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851): Top-selling novel of the 19th century; an anti-slavery novel that fueled the abolitionist movement and that supposedly led Abraham Lincoln to identify Stowe as "the little lady who started the big war" (i.e. the Civil War)
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855): First edition of the book Whitman would revise and expand into the 1890's; fulfilled Emerson's call for a new, American form of poetry.
- Nature - beautiful and dangerous
- Transcendentalist - nature is beautiful
- Freedom, not escapism - finding the self
- Lighting makes you see things differently - ambiguity, mystery
- between reality and imaginary
- violation of the human heart
- Romantics believe in evil
- 1840's-1850's
- Period in which a number of authors opened with literature in the US finding taking on "uniquely American" qualities
- Major works: (some)
- Ralph Waldo Emerson "The poet" (1844)
- Frederick Douglass "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" (1845)
- Nathanial Hawthorne, The Scarlett Letter (1850)
- Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass (1855)
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