Romanticism

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Romanticism

• 1800-1860

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Literature reflects the culture of society.

• Romantics believed that reason and logic can go
  so far.
• Romanticism is life as we wish it could be.

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Life in the times.

• Only a few negatives
• Trail of Tears
• Battle of Alamo (but later US won the territory)
• Still, Americans were hopeful- successful years
  after the revolution
• Andrew Jackson (1828) was the peoples
  president
• Era of the common man
• More direct control of the government
• Public was reading more

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American Prosperity

• Europe warned not to interfere with country
• Westward expansion
• Iron horse (railroad) made travel easier
• Advances in technology
• Factories sprouted in Northeast
• Telegraph

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THEN

• NEW prosperity
• Fierce competition in the factories
• Harsh working conditions
• Child labor
• Women fighting for rights (1840s 50s)
• Bitter division about slavery (1850s)
• 1861- CIVIL WAR BROKE OUT

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The FIVE Is of Romanticism

• Imagination
• Intuition
• Idealism
• Inspiration
• Individuality

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• Imagination
• Imagination was emphasized over reason.
• This was a backlash against the rationalism
  characterized by the Neoclassical period or Age
  of Reason.
• Imagination was considered necessary for creating
  all art.

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• Intuition
• Romantics placed value on intuition, or feeling
  and instincts, over reason.
• Emotions were important in Romantic art.

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• Idealism
• Idealism is the concept that we can make the
  world a better place.
• Idealism refers to any theory that emphasizes the
  spirit, the mind, or language over matter
  thought has a crucial role in making the world
  the way it is.

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• Inspiration
• The Romantic artist, musician, or writer, is an
  inspired creator rather than a technical
  master.
• What this means is going with the moment or
  being spontaneous, rather than getting it
  precise.

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• Individuality
• Romantics celebrated the individual.
• During this time period, Womens Rights and
  Abolitionism were taking root as major movements.
• Walt Whitman, a later Romantic writer, would
  write a poem entitled Song of Myself it
  begins, I celebrate myself

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Scope of Romanticism

• Romanticism was a movement across all the arts
  visual art, music, and literature.

• Romantic music emphasized expression of feelings.

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• Literature
• In America, Romanticism most strongly impacted
  literature.
• Writers explored supernatural and gothic themes.
  
• Love of long ago and far away evident in the
  literature.

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Internal Divisions in Romanticism

• Fireside Poets
• Dark Romanticism
• Anti-romantics
• Gothic literature
• Transcendentalism

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Fireside Poets

• Literary Giants of the time
• The TV of Romantic Period
• Families would gather around the fireplace to
  read, listen to poetry
• Comfortable, Instructional poetry

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The Fireside Poets

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• John Greenleaf Whittier
• James Russell Lowell
• Oliver Wendell Holmes
• William Cullen Bryant

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Although they were not fireside poets,Walt
Whitman Emily Dickinson are celebrated poets
of the time as well.
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Dark Romanticism

• Unlike others in this period, illustrated the
  evil that existed.
• Themes of sin, guilt, hypocrisy
• This is why they were called anti-romantics.
• Rise to GOTHIC literature

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Dark Romantics

• Herman Melville
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Edgar Alan Poe
• father of the American short story

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Transcendentalism

• Writers wrote about nature Transcendentalists
  believed God was in nature, unlike Age of
  Reason writers like Franklin and Jefferson, who
  saw God as a divine watchmaker, who created the
  universe and left it to run itself.
• Real truth, fundamental truths, lie outside the
  experience of the senses, residing instead, in
  the over-soul- a universal and benign
  omnipresence.
• Further characteristics
• Individualism
• Simplicity
• Back to the basics
• Passive resistance

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Transcendentalists

• Henry David Thoreau
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• father of American transcendentalism

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YOUR authors to teach

• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Ministers Black Veil
• Edgar Alan Poe
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Washington Irving
• father American Literature
• First American author to be widely read overseas
• The Devil and Tom Walker

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Hawthorne
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Poe
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Irving
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Irvings most popular stories-Can you guess them?
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James Fenimore Cooperfather of the American
novelAuthor ofLast of the MohicansAND
NOW-For your listening pleasure.