1. Romanticism

2. Romanticism
The term derives from “romance,” which from the Medieval Period ( ) and on simply meant a story (e.g. all the chivalric, King Arthur legends) that was adventuristic and improbable.
Later meant opposition to truth and fact; for German and British poets it meant opposition to reason.

3. How it begins…
The "Romantic Period" refers to literary and cultural movements in England, Europe, and America roughly from 1770 to 1860.
It is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world.

4. Before Reaching America…
The Romantic movement began in Germany and England in response to Industrialization and the Age of Enlightenment; Thomas Paine called it the Age of Reason.
The forerunners believed all humans are naturally good; society makes them bad.
The Romantic movement was inherently antiprogress, if progress meant industrialization.
Age of Enlightenment - At its heart it became a conflict between religion and the inquiring mind that wanted to know and understand through reason based on evidence and proof.

5. William Blake “The Chimney Sweeper”
from Songs of Innocence When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue, Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep, So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. … And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm. from Songs of Experience And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury: And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King Who make up a heaven of our misery.
Sample from Romantic movement in England. Can you identify how this represents antiprogress?

6. Romanticism as a Movement…
Difficult to define
Group of ideas
Web of beliefs
No one Romantic writer expressed all the ideas, but each believed enough of them to set him apart from earlier writers.

7. Historical Influences
Age of Reason
British Romantic Period
Westward Expansion
Increased Immigration
Religious Exploration
Growth of Industrialization
Period of Prosperity
Sense of Pride

8. Five I’s of Romanticism
Imagination
Intuition
Innocence
Inner Experience
Inspiration from nature and the supernatural
stressed the innate goodness of man, favored the individual over the group, revered nature, and rebelled against political authority

9. Romantic Writers… Commune with nature
Assert the value of the individual
Believe good literature follows the heart, not the rules
View the world as dynamic and organic
Pursue solitude (rural vs. urban)
Embrace the lofty ideals of democracy
Recognize inequalities still exist in the social and political climate
Emphasize emotion over reason

10. Subcategories of Romanticism
Fireside Poets
Transcendentalists
Brooding Writers

11. Fireside Poets Poets:: Characteristics: Classic Romantic poets
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
William Cullen Bryant
John Greenleaf Whittier
Longfellow wrote work with family friendly content & produced poems straightforward in meaning.
Classic Romantic poets
“Mainstream” poets
Optimistic
Hopeful expression of ideas
Focused on beauty of nature
Staple of home and school reading. Considered most popular poets America ever produced.
Subjects included love, patriotism, nature, family, God, and religion.

12. Transcendentalists Characteristics: Writers & Poets:
Pursued types of knowledge that exist above & beyond reason & experience
Disliked materialism & conformity
Respected the hard work ethic demonstrated by the Puritans
Strived for unity between man & nature
Writers & Poets:
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Walt Whitman

13. Brooding Writers (antitranscendentalists or dark romantics)
Characteristics:
“Alternative” Romantic poets
Focused on the human capacity for evil
Integrated aspects of the unusual & the macabre into works
Writers:
Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Herman Melville
Essential truths about life were discovered in extreme situations.

14. Edgar Allan Poe Explored human psyche Tapped into human fears
Wrote grotesques: contains characters that induce both empathy and disgust
Credited with inventing the detective story

15. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Examines the human heart under various conditions (fear, greed, vanity, mistrust, & betrayal)
Believed world contained dark places that reason could not break through
Produced allegorically symbolic works

16. Final Comments…
Be sure to copy these.

17. American Romanticism: Common Ideas
A desire to…
idealize the mysteries, dangers, & holiness found within nature
find solace & escape within an unadulterated nature
idealize primitive or natural cultures & primitive people
idealize the American past rather than a classical past