1.
American Romanticism

2. Historical Context
Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubled the size of the U.S. and created the vast frontier
War of 1812 established the U.S. as a nation who could defend herself and led to a sense of identity and patriotism as a nation, and the desire to create art and literature that was distinctly American.
Indian Removal Act of 1830 pushed Native Americans further west
“Manifest Destiny” – the idea that the U.S. was destined to expand to the Pacific and into Mexican territory
Mexican-American war of 1845

3. Industrial Revolution
War of 1812 led to increased industry in America in response to interruptions in trade
Factories changed American culture as people left their farms for jobs in the cities.
Wages and working conditions were often harsh.
Increased demand for cotton fueled the necessity of slavery in the South.
Romantic writers reacted to these negative changes, and turned to nature and self for beauty, simplicity, and truth.

4. Contrast of Romanticism and Classicism
Romantic Values/ Traits
Classical Values/Traits
Emotional
Individualistic
Revolutionary
Solitude and Nature
Fantasy/Introspection
Subjective perception
Creative power
Exotic
Noble Savage
Idealist
Rational
Public Responsibility
Conservative
Public life/urban
External reality
Objective science
Form
Mundane
Bourgeois family
Materialist

5. Cultural Influences Slavery
Abolition- Romantics brought attention to the evils of slavery through their writing.
Social Reform
- Women’s Rights
- Labor Reforms
Nationalism vs. Sectionalism- writers sought to create a unique American voice/slavery created division

6. Romanticism in Art Fishermen at Sea, by JMW Turner, 1794
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich, 1818
Fishermen at Sea, by JMW Turner, 1794

7. Hudson River School Jasper Francis Cropsey
Voyage of life-Thomas cole 1840
Jasper Francis Cropsey

8. American Romantic Writers
James Fenimore Cooper 
Emily Dickinson 
Frederick Douglass
Ralph Waldo Emerson 
Margaret Fuller 
Nathaniel Hawthorne 
Washington Irving
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
Herman Melville 
Edgar Allen Poe 
Henry David Thoreau 
Walt Whitman

9. Fireside Poets Group of New England poets
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- “Evangeline,” “The Song of Hiawatha”
James Russell Lowell
Oliver Wendell Holmes
John Greenleaf Whittier

10. Transcendentalists Emphasized simple life Nature
Celebrated emotions and the imagination
Individualism and self-reliance
Intuition can lead to knowledge
Belief in human goodness
Emphasized spiritual over material
Ralph Waldo Emerson- “Self-Reliance”
Henry David Thoreau- “Civil Disobedience”

11. American Gothic Dark literature-focus on human capacity for evil
“Anti-transcendentalists”
Focus on human motives
Gothic elements: grotesque characters, bizarre situations, violent events
Poe, Hawthorne, Melville