Values feeling and intuition over reason
Values the imagination over reality
Civilization is bad. Nature is good.
Educated sophistication is bad Youthful innocence is good
Individual freedom is important
Nature is the way to find God
Progress is bad
Most settings are in exotic locales or the supernatural
Poetry is the highest expression of the imagination
Lots of inspiration from myths and legends
Characteristics of the American Romantic Hero
Young (or at least acts young)
Innocent and pure
Sense of honor higher than society’s honor
Has knowledge of people and life based on a deep understanding, not based on education
Loves nature
Quests for a higher truth
The Transcendentalist View of the World
Everything in the world (including humans) is the reflection of the Divine Soul (God)
Nature is a doorway to the spiritual world
People can see God’s spirit looking at nature or at their own souls
Self-reliance and individualism is more important than outside authority and conformity
Spontaneous actions are better than planned ones
Elements of Romanticism
1. Frontier: vast expanse, freedom, no geographic limitations.
2. Optimism: greater than in Europe because of the presence of frontier.
3. Experimentation: in science, in institutions.
4. Mingling of races: immigrants in large numbers arrive to the US.
5. Growth of industrialization: polarization of north and south; north becomes industrialized, south remains agricultural.
Romantic Subject Matter
1. The quest for beauty: non-didactic, "pure beauty."
2. The use of the far-away and non-normal - antique and fanciful:
a. In historical perspective: antiquarianism; antiquing or artificially aging; interest in the past.
b. Characterization and mood: grotesque, Gothicism, sense of terror, fear; use of the odd and queer.
3. Escapism - from American problems.
4. Interest in external nature - for itself, for beauty:
a. Nature as source for the knowledge of the primitive.
b. Nature as refuge.
c. Nature as revelation of God to the individual.
Romantic Attitudes
1. Appeals to imagination; use of the "willing suspension of disbelief."
2. Stress on emotion rather than reason; optimism, geniality.
3. Subjectivity: in form and meaning.
Romantic Techniques
1. Remoteness of settings in time and space.
2. Improbable plots.
3. Inadequate or unlikely characterization.
4. Authorial subjectivity.
5. Socially "harmful morality;" a world of "lies."
6. Organic principle in writing: form rises out of content, non-formal.
7. Experimentation in new forms: picking up and using obsolete patterns.
8. Cultivation of the individualized, subjective form of writing.
Philosophical Patterns
1. Nineteenth century marked by the influence of French revolution of 1789 and its concepts of liberty, fraternity, equality:
a. Jacksonian democracy of the frontier.
b. Intellectual and spiritual revolution - rise of Unitarianism.
c. Middle colonies – utopian experiments
2. America basically middle-class and English - practicing laissez-faire (live and let live), modified because of geographical expansion and the need for subsidies for setting up industries, building of railroads, and others.
3. Institution of slavery in the South - myth of the master and slave - William Gilmore Simms' modified references to Greek democracy (Pericles' Athens which was based on a slave proletariat, but provided order, welfare and security for all) as a way of maintaining slavery.
The Renaissance in or the Flowering of American Literature
The decade of 1850-59 is unique in the annals of literary production. For a variety of reasons American authors, both African and European, published remarkable works in such a concentration of time that this feat, it is safe to say, has not been duplicated in this or any other literary tradition. Given below are the details:
Works by European American Writers
Year Author Title
1850 Ralph Waldo Emerson Representative Men
1850 Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter
1851 Herman Melville Moby-Dick
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom's Cabin
1854 Henry David Thoreau Walden
1855 Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass
Sources:
“Characteristics of American Romanticism.” 21 Sept. 2013.
www.lordalford.com/amromantic/American.
Reuben, Paul. “PAL: Perspectives in American Literature - A Research and Reference
Guide - An Ongoing Project.” 20 Nov. 2011. 21 Sept. 2013.
Source: http://www.gcisd-k12.org/cms/lib4/TX01000829/Centricity/Domain/628/American%20Romantic%20Notes%20Handout.doc
Web site to visit: http://www.gcisd-k12.org
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