1. American Romanticism

2. 1800-1850s Territorial Expansion Industrial Revolution
Wars, forced migration, expansion
Manifest Destiny: occupancy of the whole continent
Accomplished in 1846
Louisiana Purchase
Industrial Revolution
Factory system
Trains
Communication
Agriculture

3. 1800-1850s Democracy Minorities Voting rights Public education system
Trail of Tears
Slavery/Abolistionist movement
Women’s rights

4. Enlightenment v. Romanticism
City
Corruption
Death
Moral ambiguity
Responsibilities
Limited thought
Country
Integrity
Healthful living
Moral clarity
Freedom
Imagination

5. The City, Grim and Gray Crowded, unsanitary Cholera epidemic Homeless
Killed 100/day
Bacterial infection of digestive system
Homeless
Crime

6. Romantic Sensibility Romanticism Poetry
Value feeling and intuition over reason
Natural, emotional, conscience
Truth, beauty, emotion over reason and logic
Poetry

7. Romantic Escapism Inspiration of Nature Intuition Imagination
Moral lessons of nature
Intuition
Feelings over reason
Imagination
Innocence
Inner Experience
Psychological exploration

8. The American Novel Focused on westward expansion
James Fennimore Cooper
Wrote The Leatherstocking Tales
Natty Bumppo
First American heroic figure
Novels read as adventure stories for adolescents

9. American Romantic Poetry
English themes, meter and imagery
Fireside poets/Schoolhouse poets
Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes
Read for family entertainment
Used American subject matter

11. Romantic Writing Fireside Transcendentalism Gothic
Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, Bryant
Transcendentalism
Emerson & Thoreau
Gothic
Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, Irving