American Romanticism Americans continue to reach out for independence, prosperity, commerce, and urban civilization.

Romanticism Romanticism began in Germany in the second half of the 18th century. Romanticism influenced literature, music, and painting in Europe and England. Romanticism came late to America .

Literary Differences at a glance Franklin’s literature: Autobiography. Story of his journey to Philadelphia in 1771. Story of his journey is a personal declaration of independence. Charles Brockden: Arthur Mervyn. Story about a young farmboy hero that leaves his home to go to Philadelphia. His journey tells not of a place of promise, but a place of decay, corruption, and evil.

Rationalism vs. Romanticism According to Franklin the city was a place to find success and self-realization. To romantic writers the city was a place of moral ambiguity and worse, of corruption and death. The romantic journey is to the countryside, which romantics associated with independence, moral clarity, and healthful living.

The Romantic journey defined Voyage to the country of imagination. Flight both from something and to something. America’s first truly popular professional writer is today known principally for an immortal story about an escape from civilization and responsibility. The writer is Washington Irving. (Rip Van Winkle.)

The City: not so romantic for occupants in the early 1800s. Largest American cities were Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New York City. Washington Irving and William Cullen lived there as did other romantic writers. Between 1820 and 1840 the population doubled from 124,000 to 312,000.

New York City

Tenements In 1830 the first tenements were built. One bathtub might be shared with 400 people. Eight or more might live in a single room. Chickens would be slaughtered in individual rooms. Horse droppings littered the street. Dead horses were left to rot in street gutters.

Big City Reality In 1832 in Manhattan cholera killed an average of one hundred people per day. There were 20,000 homeless children on the streets of NY. Most worked in sweat shops.

There were waterfront gangs which included the “pirates” who killed for next to nothing. On Cherry Street 15,000 sailors were robbed in one year. Fire companies would fight over who had the right to put out the fires. Gangs. . . Fire companies.. .

Central Park William Cullen Bryant, the poet, came up with the idea to build a huge park for the health and recreation of the people. It would have to wait until after the Civil War in 1876 before it was built.

Then and Now. . .

The theme of romantic literature . . . The romantics believed that the imagination was able to apprehend truths the rational mind could not reach. These truths were usually accompanied by powerful emotion and associated with natural, unspoiled beauty. M. Hernandez

Imagination vs. Logic Sensibility, the imagination, spointaneity, individual feelings, and wild nature were of greater value than reason, logic, planning and cultivation. For artistic endeavors there was a new premium on the intuitive, “felt” experience.

Characteristics of American Romanticism Value feelings & intuition over reason. Place faith in inner experience & the power of imagination. Shuns the artificiality of civilization & seeks the unspoiled nature. Prefers youthful innocience to education sophistication. Champions individual freedom & the worth of the individual.

Contemplates nature’s beauty as a path to spiritual & moral development. Looks backward to the wisdom of the past & distrusts progress. Finds beauty & truth in exotic locales, the supernatural realm, & the inner world of the imagination. Sees poetry as the highest expression of the imagination. Finds inspiration in myth, legend, and folk culture.

Gothic Romanticism The gothic novel had wild, haunted landscapes, supernatural events and mysterious medieval castles.

Edgar Allan Poe He was attracted to the exotic, otherworldly trappings of the Gothic. In America, particularly in the works of Poe, the Gothic took a turn toward the psychological exploration of the human mind.

American Romanticism took two roads on the journey to understanding higher truths. One road led to the exploration of the past and of exotic, even supernatural, realms; the other road led to the contemplation of the natural world.

Lessons of nature between puritans and romantics. Drew moral lessons from nature. Lessons from nature were defined in their religion. In nature they found the God they knew from the Bible. Found far less clearly defined divinity in nature. Their contemplation of the natural world led to a more generalized emotional and intellectual awakening. Puritans Romantics

Would American writers continue to imitate European models? NO! The American novel development coincided with the expansion of the frontier, growth of national spirit, and the idealization of frontier life. A “geography of the imagination” developed.

James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) Cooper’s early books dealt with European lifestyles. In The Pioneers (1823) he finally wrote something uniquely American. He created the first American heroic figure: Nutty Bumppo (also known as variously as Hawkeye, Deerslayer, and Leather stocking.)

Hero The Romantic The American hero was a man virtuous, had a love of nature, distrust of town life, and almost superhuman resourcefulness.

Hero differences Age of Reason: exemplified by a real-life figure such as Ben Franklin was worldly, educated, sophisticated, and bent on making a place for himself in civilization.

Superman Lone Ranger American Romantic hero: was youthful, innocent, intuitive, and close to nature. He was also, by today’s standards, hopelessly uneasy with women, who were usually seen as to represent civilization and the impulse to “domesticate.”