The Romantics

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The Romantics

• 1800-1865

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The Romantic Period is born out of
revolutionary ideas that are laid by both the
French and American revolutions. The Romantic
Period is marked as one of the greatest paradigm
shifts in historythe literature reflecting the
drastic changes of cultural ideology and values
liberty, fraternity, and equality
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Elements of Romanticism

• Frontier vast expanse, freedom, no geographic
  limitations (Colonies and America)
• Optimism-to expect the best possible outcome
• Experimentation in science, in intellectual
  pursuits.

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Elements of Romanticism

• Mingling of races (Colonialism and foreign
  ideas.)
• Growth of industrialization.
• Writers broke away from the rationalism in the
  Age of Reason

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Romantic Subject Matter

• The quest for beauty, "pure beauty."
• Gothic- The use of the far-away and
  non-normal. Basically weird!
• Escapism - from English problems.

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Romantic Subject Matter

• Interest in nature - for itself, for beauty
• Nature as source of knowledgereaction to
  industrialization.
• Nature as refuge.
• Nature as revelation of God to the individual.

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Romantic Attitudes

• Appeals to imagination use of the "willing
  suspension of disbelief."
• Stress on emotion rather than reason.
• Subjectivity perspective is based on writers
  opinions and beliefs

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Romantic Techniques

• Settings are less constricted.
• Improbable plots.
• Unlikely characterizations

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Romantic Techniques

• Perspective of individual authors honored.
• Socially "harmful morality" a world of "lies."
• Writing becomes less formal. Traditional form is
  sacrificed for content.

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Romantic Techniques

• Experimentation in new forms.
• Cultivation of the individual, subjective form of
  writing

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The Main Authors

• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Edgar Allan Poe
• Herman Melville
• Washington Irving
• William Cullen Bryant
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow