1. Fall 2007—AP AmLit

2.  Some of my definitions are taken from Wikipedia and assorted textbooks in my office.

3.  originated in Western Europe in the late 1700s  You’ll study all about that movement next year.  In America, Romanticism began in NY with the Knickerbockers, our first group of “American” authors  It then spread through fiction and poetry

4.  Named for a character that appeared in a book by Irving.  Pants became “knickers” because they looked like the pants from the books illustrations  Yes, the basketball team is also named after them

5.  Washington Irving—1 st American author of short fiction; 1 st to gain international fame for fiction  William Cullen Bryant—1 st poet of nature  James Fenimore Cooper—1 st novelist (Last of the Mohicans)

6.  After the knickerbockers, the literary focus of the country shifted to New England  Nathaniel Hawthorne became famous for novels like The Scarlet Letter and his mysterious short stories  Edgar Allan Poe achieved fame for being generally creepy  Herman Melville wrote the first spectacular American novel—Moby-Dick

7.  It is a literature of the heart, rather than the head  It is a reaction against the analytical, logical, emotionless style of the founders and colonialists  It stresses strong emotion as an aesthetic experience  It captures the awe we feel in confronting the mystery of nature

8.  The name comes from the word romance, which has nothing to do with love and everything to do with literature  Romances were originally the stories of Rome— emotional experiences often involving supernatural beings  In English history, romances became stories in which knights saved ladies from dragons and wizards and whatnot  The Enlightenment (middle 1700s) emphasized reason over experience

9.  The Romantics sought to return to the primacy of emotional experience as the reason for literature  Romantics believed in knowledge through intuition—you just know that you know  Romantics placed an emphasis on the commmon man and the worth of the individual over society  They revered and were awed by nature—to them, it was always symbolic of the human spirit—beautiful, unpredictable, and often untameable

10.  The language becomes simpler and more common—easier to read  The typical romantic story is highly imaginative, symbolic, and idealistic  Most deal with real moral situations (except Poe)  All stories are highly supernatural

11.  Responsible for 2 characters that are often referenced today: Rip van Winkle and Ichabod Crane  Actually stole stories  Traveled the US countryside talking to immigrants  His “stories” are just Dutch, German, Irish, etc. legends written down

12.  Had a grandfather who was a judge at the Salem witch trials  So embarrassed, he changed the spelling of the family name  Most noted for The Scarlet Letter  A running theme: exploration of sin, guilt, and hypocrisy  Obsessed with Puritan history