1. American Romanticism

2. Background
The US experienced a period of growth and rapid expansion due to:
Louisiana Purchase (doubled US territory)
Westward Expansion (due to improved transportation)
Industrialization (telegraph, gasoline engine, steam engine, and factories, also caused extreme wealth and extreme poverty

3. Background
American writers established a literary tradition equal to Europe (mass circulation of magazines, novels, short stories, poems, and plays)
Time of great optimism, national pride, growth of Democracy, nationalism, Manifest Destiny = God is on our side; we have the right to take land in the name of God; spread Christianity, Andrew Jackson and the era of the common man
1837 – Texas became a republic
1845 – Texas became a state

4. Major Writers:
Washington Irving – first American writer to win international reputation; wrote “legends” about New York
James F. Cooper – first successful American novelist
William Cullen Bryant – first poet to win worldwide acclaim
Edgar Allan Poe – wrote short stories, poetry, and literary criticism; creator of the detective story
Nathaniel Hawthorne – wrote about Puritan past through short stories and novels

5. Gothic Tradition: Roots in French, German, and English literature
Distorted images
Ambiguity
Confusion of reality and imagination
Isolation/depression/morbid/doubt of sanity
Confusion of good and evil
Adrift and lost in a world of darkness

6. Major Art:

7. In the grand scheme of things…
If the “Enlightened” thinkers, as a reaction against Puritanism, deemphasized the impact of faith and God, the Romantics rebelled against the scientific reasoning and logic accentuated during the Age of Reason.

8. Because of the focus on truths and logic, the Romantics:
Demanded a return to the mystery of the human condition and ambiguity of truth.
Returned to the myths and fables and refashioned them for a new culture.
Believed in a compassionate force or side to God.
Led man to a heightened awareness of archetypal symbol; only through symbols could Romantics articulate their reinterpretation of the myths.

9. Continuing…
Attempted to recollect the wholeness of man’s being through a focus on the remote past.
Saw a darkness in the heart of man that was awful and magnificent at the same time.

10. Romantics:
Try to get away from corruption of civilization and limits of rational thought and toward integrity of nature and freedom of imagination (flight from something and to something)
Example: Irving’s character, Rip Van Winkle, escapes from civilization and responsibility to an aspect of freedom.
Two ways Romantics rise above “dull realities”:
Searched for exotic settings in more “natural” past or in world far removed from grimy and noisy industrial age
Contemplate natural world until dull reality fell away to reveal underlying beauty and truth

11. Characteristics of Romanticism:
Values feeling and intuition over reason
Places faith in inner experiences and the power of the imagination
Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks unspoiled nature
Prefers youthful innocence to educated sophistication
Champions individual freedom and the worth of the individual

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

13. At Its Best, Romanticism:
Searches for wholeness
Looks to dreams, intuition, imagination as modes of knowledge
Leads to freedom
Fosters the common man by turning to fables, folk stories, myths
Emphasizes the sacredness of the earth
Gives rise to passion and spirit
Prefers heart to brain
Links joy to suffering
Encounters the feminine, the child within all
Acknowledges the creative force in man’s dark side

14. At Its Worst, Romanticism:
Exalts the individual ego
Cares little for society
Invokes demons
Mixes pleasure with pain
Fosters world disorder
Encourages melancholy, self-pity, self-glorification
Encourages defiance, rebellion, revolution
Exalts man as God