1. 1800-1870

2.  16 east coast states  Louisiana Purchase brought about rapid growth of nation  Improved transportation from canals, turnpikes, railroads  More direct control of government with “People’s President” Andrew Jackson  Rails linked east and west  Technological advances—factories, steel plow, reaper, telegraph  Slavery still divided nation

3.  Before 1800, American writers were not widely read  Writers of this period defined the American voice  Primary theme—the quest of the individual to define him or herself

4.  Don’t be mislead—not the hearts and flowers definition of romantic  Romanticism means the focus on feelings, emotions, and intuition over reason  Romanticism is the opposite of the rationalism of the Revolutionary Period  First great and enduring American fiction grew from the romanticism of this period  2 paths of American Romanticism—Dark Romantics (or Gothics) and Nature Romantics

5.  Dark Romantics  Focus on the dark, irrational, exotic side of the human mind Edgar Allen Poe Nathaniel Hawthorne  Nature Romantics  Focus on the profound love of and appreciation for the natural world Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau

6.  Ralph Waldo Emerson called for the intellectual independence from Great Britain  This brought about an “impressive burst of literary activity in and around Boston between 1840-1855…”

7.  Go beyond daily life—literally to transcend— and rely on some higher power or one’s intuition of that which “lies beyond direct experience”  Religion may impact this way of thinking and writing  “The real truths…the most fundamental truths lie outside the experience of the senses…”

8.  Popular group of poets whose works were read and recited around the fire at night as family entertainment  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  James Russell Lowell  John Greenleaf Whittier  Oliver Wendall Holmes

9.  Life  Named after President Washington  Studied law  Travelled New York’s Hudson Valley  His popular stories have become an important art of American literary heritage  Literature  Wrote satirical essays  Diedrich Nickerbocker  “legend of Sleepy Hollow”  “Rip Van Winkle”  “Devil and Tom Walker”

10.  Life  Dark and dismal life  Poor, father abandoned him, mother died  Taken in by wealthy Allen family  Gambler, addictions, depression, madness  Literature  Writing did not make him $ or famous  Inventor of detective story  Great mystery writer  Popular among readers  “Fall of the House of Usher”

11.  Life  Ancestor’s took part in Salem Witch Trials  Gave him a gloomy view of life and an inherited sense of guilt  Literature  Secluded himself and wrote after college  Scarlet Letter considered his masterpiece  “The Minister’s Black Veil”

12.  Life  Harvard, then became minister  Lecturer  Mingled with “country’s most important thinkers”  Literature  One of the most quoted writers in American literature  Considered himself more of a poet  From Of Nature  From Self Reliance