1. American Romanticism

2. Romanticism Literary and artistic movement Affected literature, paintings, sculpture, and music –Internationally: 1770-1870 –England: 1798-1832 –America: 1830-1865 Distrust of reason Reaction against Neoclassicism

3. Characteristics of Romanticism Excess of emotion/Emotion over reason Power of the individual and his/her imagination Power and celebration of nature as wild and mysterious; the sublime Every man can learn wisdom—common man Subjective experiences: intuition, feelings, desires, hopes, and dreams Spontaneity in thought and action Interest in the supernatural Nationalism

4. Contributing Factors to the Romantic Movement Printing presses More leisure time More women readers Ideals of democracy Lifelessness of Deism and Enlightenment thought French Revolution Industrialization Puritanism, guilt, salvation, wilderness of America

5. Transcendalism In philosophy and literature, belief in a higher reality than that found in sensory experience or belief in a higher kind of knowledge than that achieved by human reason God gave humankind the gift of intuition, the gift of insight, the gift of inspiration.

6. Ralph Waldo Emerson author essayist lecturer philosopher Unitarian minister

7. Emerson and the Transcendentalists Led the search for truth in nature through self-reliance “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.” Emerson

8. The Oversoul Universe Man Nature

9. INDIVIDUALISM: be true to one’s own inner perception or intuition If I know it is truth, then it is truth.

10. UNLIMITED POTENTIAL OF EACH INDIVIDUAL set high goals to improve

11. Nature is Truth It can be a guide to higher understanding Nature symbolizes God or the inner life of human beings

12. Henry David Thoreau Lived the philosophy of Transcendentalism that Emerson espoused Spent 26 months at Walden Pond to “live deliberately - to front only the essential facts of life...”

13. Transcendentalism began with a few and grew. This philosophy lasted for several years in New England. It ended as the Civil War began.

14. Another group of authors and artists of this time were called the Dark Romantics – we will discuss these in a future class.

15. Thomas Cole of the American Romantic “Hudson School” The Voyage of Life: Youth Compare this image of nature to the image of the gardens at Versailles in the Neoclassicism PowerPoint, and you will see the stark differences. Man is not in charge but is part of the mysterious natural world.

16. Emerson Thoreau Poe Melville WhitmanHawthorne American Romantics