Unit 2 Romanticism

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Unit 2Romanticism
Washington Irving
Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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When/where did it start?

• The Romanticism movement began around the late
  18th, early 19th century

18th century (1700s)
19th century (1800s)
Revolutionary/Colonial Period
Romanticism Period
Started in Europe and then spread to America
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Characteristics

• Celebrated the individual spirit rather than God

Who am I? What makes me happy?
Tired of writing about God
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Characteristics, cont.

• Some Romantic writers had a fascination with the
  supernatural.

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Characteristics, cont.

• The Gothic movement was born out of Romanticism.
• The Gothic movement really began with a book by
  Horace Walpole called The Castle of Otranto. It
  is set in a haunted castle and containing various
  mysterious apparitions .
• One of the most noted American Gothic writers is
  Edgar Allan Poe.

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Gothic, cont.

• Readers eagerly sought out the hysterical,
  mystical, passionate adventures of terrified
  heroes and heroines in the clutches of
  frightening, mysterious forces.
• The modern horror novel and woman's romance are
  both descendants of the Gothic romance.
• Examples Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and her
  sister Emily's Wuthering Heights Mary Shelley's
  Frankenstein

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Notable Romantic Writers

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Washington Irving The Devil and Tom Walker and
  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter, Dr.
  Heideggers Experiment

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Born July 4, 1804
• Originally spelled Hathorne added the w
  after college
• 1821, entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick,
  Maine. Classmates with Longfellow and future 14th
  president, Franklin Pierce.
• For twelve years after college, he lived in his
  mothers house working on perfecting his writing.

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Hawthorne, cont.

• 1828- published Fanshaw A Tale. He thought it
  was terrible so he bought virtually all copies so
  no one could read it.
• 1837- published Twice Told Tales to good
  reception.
• 1842 married Sophia Amelia Peabody
• After a while, Hawthorne began to work as a
  surveyor for the port of Salem. When the Whigs
  won the 1848 election, he lost his position. This
  gave him time to write The Scarlet Letter.

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Hawthorne, cont.

• The Scarlet Letter is somewhat based on his
  Puritan ancestry. (He was related to Judge
  Hathorne from the SWT).
• The Scarlet Letter only sold 8,000 copies in his
  lifetime.
• 1851 published The House of Seven Gables
• Died in his sleep on May 19, 1864- buried in
  Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord, Mass.

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Transcendentalism

• Distinctly American offshoot of Romanticism.
  Focuses on the belief that transcendent forms of
  truth exist beyond reason and experience.
•  Transcendentalists believed that every
  individual was capable of discovering higher
  truth on his own through intuition, rather than
  established religion
• Most noted Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo
  Emerson, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau.