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American Romanticism 1800 - 1860

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American Romanticism 1800 - 1860 We will walk with our own feet we will work with our own hands we will speak our own minds-Ralph Waldo Emerson Political and Social ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: American Romanticism 1800 - 1860


1
American Romanticism1800 - 1860
  • We will walk with our own feet
  • we will work with our own hands
  • we will speak our own minds
  • -Ralph Waldo Emerson

2
Political and Social Milestones
  • The Louisiana Purchase - 1803
  • The Gold Rush - 1849
  • Education and Reform

3
Rationalism vs Romanticism
  • The rationalists believed the city to be a place
    to find success and self-realization
  • The romantics associated the countryside with
    independence, moral clarity, and healthful living.

4
Characteristics of American Romanticism
  • Values feeling and intuition over reason
  • Places faith in inner experience and the power of
    the imagination
  • Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks
    unspoiled nature
  • Prefers youthful innocence to educated
    sophistication
  • Champions individual freedom and the worth of the
    individual
  • Contemplates natures beauty as a path to
    spiritual and moral development

5
Characteristics (continued)
  • Looks backward to the wisdom of the past and
    distrusts progress
  • Finds beauty and truth in exotic locals, the
    supernatural realm, and the inner world of the
    imagination
  • Sees poetry as the highest expression of the
    imagination
  • Finds inspiration in myth, legend, and fold
    culture

6
Rising to higher truths
  • through the exploration of the past and of
    exotic, even supernatural, realms--the Gothic
    novel--old legends and folklore
  • through the contemplation of the natural
    world--lyric poetry--its underlying beauty and
    truth

7
The New American Novel
  • James Fenimore Cooper
  • Natty Bumpo - new kind of hero
  • Triumph of American innocence
  • Popular twenty and twenty-first century Romantic
    heroes

8
New American Novelists
  • Herman Melville - (ex-sailor) wrote Moby Dick
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne - wrote The Scarlet Letter
  • More a coming of age not a renaissance

9
The Fireside Poets
  • Opposite of novelists - worked within European
    literary traditions
  • Used English themes, meter, imagery with American
    settings and subjects
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf
    Whittier, Oliver Wendel Holmes, James Russell
    Lowell

10
Transcendentalism
  • The idea that in determining the ultimate reality
    of God, the universe, the self, and other
    important matters, one must transcend, or go
    beyond, everyday human experience in the physical
    world.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson influenced by ancient Greek -
    Plato
  • Also based on Puritan belief and Romantics
  • Based on intuition optimistic
  • Henry David Thoreau Emersons close friend

11
The Realm of Darkness
  • Edgar Allen Poe with Hawthorne and Melville known
    and anti-Transcendentalists
  • Had much in common with Trascendentalists
  • Explored conflicts between good and evil,
    psychological effects of guilt and sin, and
    madness

12
Whitman and Dickinson19th centurys greatest
poets
  • Spoke to the masses
  • Universal brotherhood, democracy
  • Aimed for overall impression, free verse based on
    cadence
  • Obscure homebody
  • In nature, found metaphors for the spirit
  • Meticulous word choice, precise language, evoking
    feelings
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