American Romanticism 1800-1860

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American Romanticism1800-1860
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Introduction

• Fiction
• Washington Irving
• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Non-Fiction
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• Politics
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• Mohandas Gandhi
• Literary Elements
• Figures of speech
• Symbolic meaning
• Making Predictions/Foreshadowing

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Quick Write

• We will walk on our own fee
• We will work with our own hands
• We will speak our own minds
• Does this describe an American ideal that is
  alive and well today? Explain your answer!

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Major National Events of the Romantic Period

• 1803 The Louisiana Purchase is made in a threat
  made by the United States on Napoleon and his
  army.
• 1814 Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled
  Banner as a poem. The song officially became the
  national anthem by an act of Congress in 1931
• 1830 The underground railroad is established as
  a secret system for helping fugitive slaves reach
  safety.

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Important Events Continued..

• 1845 Edgar Allan Poe publishes The Raven and
  Other Poems
• 1849 California Gold Rush begins as thousands of
  gold miners travel to the Sacramento area.
• 1854 Modern Republic party is organized to
  oppose the extension of slavery

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Romanticism

• A set of loosely connected attitudes toward
  nature and human kind, not to romantic love.

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Causes

• Sprang up as a reaction to everything that came
  before it
• 1. The Age of Reason which stressed
• a. reason
• b. logic
• c. scientific observation
• 2. Puritanism and its rigid religious beliefs
• a. Humans are inherently evil and must struggle
  to overcome their sinful nature.
• b. Personal salvation depends solely on the
  grace of God, not on individual effort.
• c. The Bible is the supreme authority of earth.

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Features

• 1. Nature -Nature over fear of God as source of
  inspiration
• 2. Individualism -Mans possibilities over his
  limitations
• -Individual over society
• 3. Emotions -Imagination, sentiment, and
  feelings over reason
• -Intuition over facts
• 4. Mystery -Supernatural and unexplained over
  explainable
• 5. Optimism -Life is good
• -Man controls his life, not fate

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Features cont

• 6. Imagery -Focused on landscapes, natural
  backdrops, even details of a room setting to
  give as much sensory information as possible
• 7. Awareness
• of Past -A focus on where we came from
• -An appreciation of folklore
• 8. Adventure -The characters were entering
  unknown territory or
• experiences.
• -They looked upon it as an opportunity and
  challenge, not something to fear.
• 9. Rebellion -Broke the rules of classic
  formsboth short story and unrhymed poetry were
  new
• 10. Simplicity -Simple pleasures/ways over
  impersonal technology
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• 11. The celebration of the common man

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Transcendentalism

• 1840-1870

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Transcendentalism

• An intellectual movement that thought we used
  something more than our 5 physical senses to
  understand life and our place in it.
• -Trans to go across
• -Not a religion or philosophy but has elements
  of both
• A view held by a group of people during the
  Romantic Period
• Members of the Transcendentalist movement have
  greatly influenced literature, even today. We
  will be studying some of the most important
  authors of this movement, including
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau

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Elements of Transcendentalism

• 1. Nonconformity -Individualism
• 2. Self Reliance -Trust yourself/intuition
• 3. Optimism -All men have equal possibilities.
• -Man is inherently good.
• 4. Nature -Appreciation of the simple life and
  the natural surroundings
• 5. Oversoul -Connects all to God, Nature, Man
• -We are all part of something larger than
  each part. This belief draws the line between
  celebrating the self and being selfish.
• 6. Carpe Diem -Seize the day

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Many elements of the transcendental theory
were evident again in the 1960s-70s.

• Nonconformity
• Civil Disobedience
• Goodness of man
• Respect for the simple way of life and nature
• Brotherhood of man
• Seizing the day
• Keep the above ideas in mind as we discuss this
  period!!!