American Romantic Period

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American Romantic Period

• Also known as the American Renaissance

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1800 - 1860

• Whats going on in the world
• 1803 Louisiana Purchase
• 1810 Mexico begins its war of independence
  from Spain
• 1812 British attempt to take back America in
  the War of 1812
• 1815 Napoleon defeated at Waterloo
• 1820-1821 Missouri Compromise (free state/
  slave state)
• 1830 Underground railroad begins
• 1837 Queen Victoria rules England
• 1845 United States annexes Texas
• 1849 California gold rush
• 1854 Republican party formed (opposed extension
  of slavery)
• 1858 England takes over rule of India

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The Gold Rush

• Helped to develop the West
• Led to the building of railroads
• California and Alaska were major rushes

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Romanticism

• NOT about love
• Values feeling and intuition over reason
• Romantics believed that imagination could
  discover truths that the rational mind could not
• Nature is very important

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many
things which escape those who dream only by
night. -Edgar Allan Poe
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Characteristics of the American Romantic period

• Values feeling and intuition over reason
• Values the imagination over reality
• Civilization is bad Nature is good
• Educated sophistication is bad Youthful
  innocence is good
• Individual freedom is important
• Nature is the way to find God
• Progress is bad
• Most settings are in exotic locales or the
  supernatural
• Poetry is the highest expression of the
  imagination
• Lots of inspiration from myths and legends

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The American Hero

• Sense of honor higher than societys honor
• Has knowledge of people and life based on a deep
  understanding, not based on education
• Loves nature
• Quests for a higher truth

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The Hero

• First American Hero created by James Fennimore
  Cooper
• Natty Bumppo (went by other names
  Hawkeye, Deerslayer, and Leatherstocking)

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The Fireside Poets

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

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Fireside Poets

• People liked to read their works by the fireside
  at night
• For a very long time were known as the most
  popular poets ever

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Transcendentalists

• One must go beyond (transcend) the everyday human
  experience in order to determine the ultimate
  reality of God
• What is perceived by the senses is not
  necessarily true
• Believed in human perfectibility
• Ralph Waldo Emerson is best known

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The Dark Romantics

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman
  Melville
• Believed what the Romantics did, but felt that at
  the core of everyone was a dark, sinister being
• Has a lot of crazy or guilt-racked people in
  their stories