The Age of Romanticism

1
Part ?

• The Age of Romanticism
• 17701875
• --By Lynn

2
Chapter ? American Literature of Pre-Romanticism

• Teaching aims
• To know the background of the emergence of
  American Romanticism
• To master the important characteristics of
  American Romanticism
• To get familiar with the representative writers
  of the different periods of American Romanticism

3
Logic Thread
4
Representative figures of the time

• Pre-romanticism
• Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper
• William Cullen Bryant

• Post-romanticism
• Novelists Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman
• Melville
• Poets Henry Wadesworth Longfellow,
• John, Greenleaf Whittier,
  Edgar
• Allan Poe, Walt Whitman
• Emily Dickinson
• Essayists Ralph Waldo Emerson,
• Henry David Thoreau

5
What is Romanticism ?

• As an approach in literary creation,
  romanticism is ever present in literature of all
  times. But as a literary trend or movement, it
  occurred and developed in Europe and America at
  the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries under the
  historical background of the Industrial
  Revolution around 1760 and the French Revolution
  (1789-1799). The term Romantic as a designation
  for a school of literature opposed to the Classic
  was first used by the German critic Friedrich
  Schlegel at the beginning of the 19th century.
  From Germany, this meaning was carried to England
  and France.

6

• Romanticism was a rebellion against the
  objectivity of rationalism. For romantics, the
  feelings, intuitions and emotions were more
  important than reason and common sense. They
  stressed the close relationship between man and
  nature, emphasized individualism and affirmed the
  inner life of the self. They cherished strong
  interest in the past, especially the medieval and
  were attracted by the wild, the irregular, the
  indefinite, the remote, the mysterious, and the
  strange.

7
Romanticism in England

• Social background
• The French Revolution
• The influence of the Industrial
• Revolution
• U.S. (declare Independence)
• (1775-1865)
• The War of Independence.
• Features Subjectivity, back to medieval back to
  nature

8
American Romanticism

• The romantic period stretches from the end
  of the eighteenth century through the outbreak of
  the Civil War (1790-1865).1. Background (1)
  Political background and economic development
• Territorial Expansion
• Industrial Growth
• The Civil War
• (2) Romantic movement in European countries
  Derivative foreign influence

9
Commonplaces of American Romanticism

• New emphasis upon the imaginative and emotional
  qua1ities of literature.
• An increasing emphasis on the free expression of
  emotions and displayed an increasing attention to
  the psychic states of their character.
• The strong tendency to exalt the individual and
  the common man was almost a national religion in
  America

10
Specific Features of American Romanticism

• (1) American romanticism was in essence the
  expression of a real new experience and
  contained an alien quality for the simple
  reason that the spirit of the place was
  radically new and alien. (2) There is American
  Puritanism as a cultural heritage to consider.
  American romantic authors tended more to
  moralize. Many American romantic writings
  intended to edify more than they entertained.
  (3) The newness of Americans as a nation is in
  connection with American Romanticism. (4) As a
  logical result of the foreign and native factors
  at work, American romanticism was both imitative
  and independent.

11
Pre-romanticism 1770-1830s

• During this period some American writers did
  begin to attract notice abroad. Although English
  literary models were still admired and followed,
  the American writers turned to the American scene
  and civilization, and found their materials in
  the culture and history, the lore and landscape
  of their native land. Irving, Cooper, and Bryant
  made for themselves the first great names in
  American literature. All were praised not only in
  their own country but abroad as well. All have
  left work that is enjoyable reading today.

12
Figures of the time

• Washington Irving (1783-1859)
• ????? ?????????

13

• From 1836 to 1842 Irving lived at Sunnyside
  manor house, Tarrytown, New York, where he died.
  In the 1990s the village of North Tarrytown was
  renamed Sleepy Hollow.

14

• Several names attached to Irving a. He is
  Father of American Literature. He is the first
  American writer of imaginative literature to gain
  international fame. He is equal to English
  writers. Before him, American literature was
  influenced by British Literature. Through
  Irving, American literature attained its
  independent status. The short story, as a
  literary genre, begins with Washingtons The
  Sketch Book.
• b. He is the first short stories writer of
  English literature as well as American
  literature.
• The Sketch Book marks the beginning of
  Romanticism in U.S. A.
• C. He is considered as the prince of
  story-tellers, skillful in telling a story.

15

• Life and literary career
• 1) 18091832 a. Subjects are either English or
  European b. Conservative love for the antique
  2) 18321859 back to US

16

• Works
• A History of New York?????-----??????????????
• The Sketch Book????
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?????-----???????????
  ???????
• Bracebridge Hall????????
• Talks of Travellers???
• The Alhambra?????

17
Rip Van Winkle

• The content of Rip Van Winkle ( 20 minutes )
• --Students report on the story
• --Teachers summarizing
• Group discussion the theme of the story (30
  mins)
• --Students report in groups
• --Teacher wins up
• Artistic features of Irving ( 10 minutes )

18

• By all means marry. If you get a good
  wife, you will become very happy if you get a
  bad one, you will become a philosopherand that
  is good for every man.

????,???????????????,????????????????,????
???????????????? ----Socrates????
19

• Rip Van Winkle is an idle, ambitionless, and
  inaggressive mortal. He is a comic burlesque of
  traditional American values created by Irving.
  Being a victim of his wifes nagging at home, he
  seeks refuge in the mountains where he meets
  several mountain spirits ant tastes the liquor
  left by them out of curiosity. Overwhelmed by the
  magic power of the drink, Rip falls into a
  twenty-year sleep. When he wakes up, every thing
  has undergone a tremendous change. Every thing is
  strange to him. The village is larger and more
  populous and young people in the village dont
  recognize him. His own house which Dame Van
  Winkle has always kept in neat order, is now
  empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. The
  portrait of King George on the pole before the
  village inn has been replaced by the flag of
  stars and stripes. In places where he used to
  enjoy peace and ease there is now quarrel and
  disputes over parties and he is even suspected as
  a spy. Finally he is recognized by his daughter
  and taken home. He spends his late years telling
  his stories to whoever might care to listen to
  him.

20

• Franklin and Irving ideas show something in
  common, also quite different.
• Similarity individualism the whole social
  system is built upon individualism (quite
  different from Chinese collectivism)
• Difference Franklins individualism
  pragmatic----material interests----How to attain
  a better, richer life through individual
  effort----the whole society will become
  prosperous----influenced by Puritanism----through
  industrial work----live better
• Irvings individualism romantic----What kind of
  life to live is chosen by individual self.
  Nobody can interfere with others living----close
  to nature, live a natural life, more spiritual
  (your own spirit)
• Great clash between these ideas. Pragmatic wins
  the upper hand at that time. The trend of the
  society is the pragmatic individualism. Irvings
  idea is against the mainstream of society. How
  to solve the problem? ----by sleeping

21
Theme of the story

• 1)Superficially, the conflict between husband and
  wife was presented in the story. In fact, the
  writer tries to express his idea the conflict
  between different ideas of value.
• wife follower of Franklin
• husband romantic point of view

22

• 2) retain his identity
• search for ones identity????
• remain faithful to yourself (universal meaning)
  The old generation usually are conservative
  during a great change, cannot adapt themselves to
  the changes, nostalgic
• The old system seems to be an ideal one. He knew
  where he was even though he led a poor life.
  After Independence (King of George---George
  Washington) a State of democracy is a state of
  disorder in Rips eye (passive romantic school)

23

• 3). Nostalgic
• The character Rip Rip is an idler with an
  insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable
  labor. His family sinks into poverty while he
  wastes his time rambling over the countryside and
  telling stories to the village gossips. His wife
  is very angry about his irresponsibility or the
  family and keeps continually blaming him for his
  idleness, his carelessness and his worthlessness.
  Her ceaseless tongue forces him to leave the
  house and escape into the woods. Rip wants to
  escape from his shrewish wife---steps outside the
  mainstream of life. In fact what he really means
  is to be divorced from the utilitarian society
  and the duties responsibilities one must fulfill
  as its member. Escapism is the dominant feature
  of Rips character. The image of Rip is the
  product of Irvings philosophical contemplation
  over the past history of America He describes the
  impact and pressure an individual has borne in
  the difficult pioneering years as well as the
  psychological setback and response an individual
  has experienced in a drastically developing
  world. On one hand, Rip doesnt want to undertake
  the responsibility pressed by the cruel reality.
  On the other hand, e is contented with the
  existing state of affairs, nd even somewhat
  disgusted with the newly emerging things.Rips
  perplexity reflects the painedheart of the early
  pioneers in their fight against the hard
  suuroundings and their self.

24
The theme of the short story

• (be against the traditional values and the war,
  for the sleeping period was the time when the war
  broke out)
• the story of man who has difficulties facing his
  advancing age
• the contradictory impulses in America toward
  workthe puritan attitude as oppsed to the
  American desire for leisure
• the theme of escape from ones responsibilities
  and even ones history
• the loss of identity. Each of these themes is
  woven together throughout the tale.

25
Rip Van Wrinkle
26

• Symbol
• Rip Van Winkle symbolic, representative of all
  romantic persons.
• A. live an idle life, peaceful life
• B. Rest in Peace after death (retain his
  identity)
• Rip Van Winkle has been seen as a symbol of
  several aspects of America. Rip, like America, is
  immature, self-centered, careless,
  anti-intellectual, imaginative, and jolly as the
  overgrown child. The Dame is another symbolof
  puritanical discipline and the work ethic of
  Franklin. The town itself is emproblematic of
  Americaforever and rapidly changing. Washington
  Irving has Rip sleep through his own countrys
  history, through what we might call the birth
  pangs of America, and return to the busy,
  bustling, disputations selfconsciously adult
  United States of America. His conflicts and
  dreams are those of the nationthe conflict of
  innocence and experience, work and leisure, the
  old and the new, the head and the heart.

27
After-class thinking

• shall we pity Rip?

28

• James Fenimore Cooper 1789-1851?????????
  ?????????James Fenimore Cooper was remembered
  today as the author of the "LeatherStocking
  Tales",a series of five novels, that is he
  Pioneers (I823), the Last of the Mohicans(1826),
  The Prairie(1827), The Pathfinder(1840) and The
  Deerslayer(1841). The figures in his novels
  helped create that part of American mythology
  most popular todaythe story of the cowboy and
  the winning of the American West.

29
Coopers signature
30
Works

• Precaution (1820, his first novel, imitating
  Austens Pride and Prejudice)
• The Spy (his second novel and great success) ??
  The Pilot???
• (3) Leatherstocking Tales (his masterpiece, a
  series of five novels) ??????The Pioneer???The
  Last of Mohicans???????The Prairie???The
  Pathfinder???The Deerslayer???

31
From the Deerslayer
Lunch Break During the Filming of The Deerslayer
in 1911
32
Watching Deerslayer Paddle Away from Council Rock
Deerslayer Kills His First Indian
33
Muskrat Castle, the Hutters' Home on "Sunken
Island"
At Council Rock
34

• William Cullen Bryant????????1794-1878 ????????
  The Fireside Poet

35

• To a Waterfowl???-----?????????
• Thanatopsis????---??????
• The Whitefooted Deer???
• A Forest Hymn???
• The Flood of Years????

36

• Bryant gained public recognition first and
  is best remembered for Thanatopsis, published
  in 1821 but written when he was a teenager. Still
  widely anthologized, this poem offers a
  democratic reconciliation with death as the great
  equalizer and a recognition that the still
  voice of God is embodied in all processes of
  nature. During a busy life as a lawyer and editor
  of the New York Evening Post, Bryant wrote
  accomplished, elegant, and romantic descriptions
  of a nature suffused with spirit.